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Neurospora crassa
Roland Gromes, CC BY-SA 4.0, via iNaturalist

Cup fungi, moulds & other fungi

Neurospora crassa

Names

English—
Dutch—
Spanish—
Chinese粗糙脉孢菌
Scientific nameNeurospora crassa Shear & B.O.Dodge

About this species

Neurospora crassa is a type of red bread mold of the phylum Ascomycota. The genus name, meaning 'nerve spore' in Greek, refers to the characteristic striations on the spores. The first published account of this fungus was from an infestation of French bakeries in 1843.

Neurospora crassa is used as a model organism because it is easy to grow and has a haploid life cycle that makes genetic analysis simple since recessive traits will show up in the offspring. Analysis of genetic recombination is facilitated by the ordered arrangement of the products of meiosis in Neurospora ascospores. Its entire genome of seven chromosomes has been sequenced.

Neurospora was used by Edward Tatum and George Wells Beadle in their experiments for which they won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1958. Beadle and Tatum exposed N. crassa to X-rays, causing mutations. They then observed failures in metabolic pathways caused by errors in specific enzymes. This led them to propose the "one gene, one enzyme" hypothesis that specific genes code for specific proteins.

Read more on Wikipedia · Text: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Classification

KingdomFungi
PhylumAscomycota
ClassSordariomycetes
OrderSordariales
FamilySordariaceae
GenusNeurospora

In Suriname

1Records in Suriname
2021First record

Where it has been recorded

  • Brokopondo1

Districts with at least one record that has coordinates. Shaded districts have records.

Sources & credits

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