DOI

10.30707/1734473261.414558

Document Type

Senior Thesis

Publication Date

Spring 2024

Committee Chair

Thomas Hammond

Committee Member

Wade Nichols

Abstract

Meiotic drive is a non-Mendelian inheritance phenomenon where selfish genetic elements change gene transmission in their own favor. This phenomenon occurs in the fungus Neurospora crassa during spore killing. When a strain carrying a spore killer genetic element is crossed with a non-spore killing wild type strain, the cross will produce half viable and half inviable offspring. The N. crassa Sk-3 spore killer is found on Chromosome III. Sk-3 is one of the most studied meiotic drive elements in Neurospora fungi and it is thought to require a killer gene and a resistance gene for spore killing. While the killer gene has not been identified, recent work has isolated a mutation (rfk-2UV) that disrupts spore killing. Although this mutation has been mapped to Chromosome III, its exact location is not known. In this work, I investigate the role of one DNA interval in Sk-3-based spore killing. This DNA interval, referred to as v373, is thought to reside within or near rfk-2UV. My results will contribute to future efforts to identify the Sk-3 killer gene.

Funding Source

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (Award Number 200595, Elucidating the mechanism of meiotic drive by mRNA editing-mediated spore killing in Neurospora fungi).

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