User:Djbartle
From MicrobeWiki, the student-edited microbiology resource
Classification
Higher order taxa
Kingdom: Fungi Division: Ascomycota Class: Eurotiomycetes Order: Eurotiales Family:Trichocomaceae Genus: Aspergillus
Species
Aspergillus nidulans
Description and significance
A. nidulans is a form of filamentous fungi that has proved to serve as a valuable model organism in the realm of eukaryotic cell biology. Due to its capabilty to generate sexual spores via meiosis, researchers are capable of generating variable strains of the species. For the last 50 years, A. nidulans has been used to study a wide array of processes and topics such as cell cycles, DNA repair, nucleokinesis, pathogenesis, mutation, and evolutionary processes. As a model organism, species' diversified genome (unlike its relatives) allows for a more developed understanding of other species in the Aspergillus genus.
Genome structure
Considering that A. nidulans is sexually reproductive, it contains a well-developed genetics system. Its genome is composed of 30 million base pairs in size with around 9,500 protein-coding genes on eight different chromosomes [1].
Cell structure and metabolism
Ecology
Pathology
Application in pharmaceutical research
Current research
References
1 Galagan JE; et al. (2005). "Sequencing of Aspergillus nidulans and comparative analysis with A. fumigatus and A. oryzae". Nature. 438 (7071): 1105–15. doi:10.1038/nature04341. PMID 16372000.
