Ascus rosette from a cross of the S. macrospora wild type (black spores) with the spore color mutant fus (brown spores). Each ascus (meiosporangium) contains eight spores, which are the haploid products of meiosis and a subsequent post-meiotic mitosis. Recombinant asci contain four black (wild type) and four brown (fus) spores. Picture credits: Ulrich Kück

Sordaria macrospora is a filamentous ascomycete with a long-standing history as a model organism for sexual development and meiosis. Similar to its close relative Neurospora crassa, S. macrospora is haploid with a nuclear genome of 40 Mb. However, in contrast to the heterothallic (self-sterile) N. crassa, S. macrospora is homothallic (self-fertile). Thus, a single strain is able to form fruiting bodies, with the life cycle completed in seven days under laboratory conditions. In addition, S. macrospora can also undergo outcrossing and is amenable to classic genetic techniques, e.g. the analysis of meiotic tetrads. A large set of molecular genetic tools has been developed for this fungus, resulting in the discovery of novel proteins involved in central events of meiosis and multicellular development in fungi.

The genome sequence and gene models of Sordaria macrospora k-hell were not determined by the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), but were downloaded from Ensembl Fungi on April 11, 2020. Please note that this copy of the genome is not maintained by Ensembl and is therefore not automatically updated. The JGI Annotation Pipeline was used to add additional functional annotation to the author's chromosomes and proteins.