Genome
The A. nidulans genome was sequenced in a collaboration between Monsanto and the Broad Institute. A sequence with 13-fold coverage was publicly released in March 2003; analysis of the annotated genome was published in Nature in December 2005. It is 30 million base pairs in size and is predicted to contain around 9,500 protein-coding genes on eight chromosomes.
Recently, several caspase-like proteases were isolated from A.nidulans samples under which programmed cell death had been induced. Findings such as these play a key role in determining the evolutionary conservation of the mitochondrion within the eukaryotic cell, and its role as an ancient proteobacterium capable of inducing cell death.
Read more about this topic: Aspergillus Nidulans