289— Phenotypic characterization of Neurospora crassa fsd-1 overexpression strains

Neurospora crassa is a model filamentous fungal organism that can reproduce both asexually and sexually. Little is known about the molecular mechanisms that regulate the N. crassa female sexual development cycle. The transcription factor fsd-1 is necessary for sexual development, and fsd-1 deletion strains show delayed development of female reproductive structures and are sterile. Through previous experiments, we have been able to determine that there are three different transcripts of the fsd-1 gene, which differ by the length and intron/exon structure of their 5’ untranslated region. This project focuses on phenotypically characterizing the reproductive ability of strains overexpressing fsd-1, for each of the three transcripts. We are also using Q-RT-PCR to confirm an increase in fsd-1 expression in strains with an overexpression construct for the medium length transcript of fsd-1, which is expressed highly during sexual development.