Neurospora As Model Organisms
Neurospora is widely used in genetics as a model organism (especially N. crassa) because it is quickly reproducing, is easy to culture, and can survive on minimal media (inorganic salts, glucose, water and biotin in agar).
The first studies of sexual reproduction in Neurospora were made by B. O. Dodge. Neurospora was later used by George Wells Beadle and Edward Lawrie Tatum in X-ray mutation experiments in order to discover mutants that would differ in nutritional requirements. The results of their experiments led them to the one gene-one enzyme hypothesis, in which they postulated that every enzyme was encoded with its own gene.
Research with Neurospora is reported semi-annually at the Neurospora Meeting at Asilomar, California, coordinated by the Fungal Genetics Stock Center. Mutant and wild-type strains of Neurospora are available from the FGSC. The FGSC also publishes the Fungal Genetics Reports.
Important people in Neurospora research:
- Bernard Ogilvie Dodge (1872–1960)
- George Beadle (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1958)
- Edward Tatum (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1958)
- Esther Lederberg
- Norman Giles
- David Perkins
- Robert Metzenberg
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