This award provides funds to support a three-month research visit by Dr. Alice L. Schroeder, Department of Genetics and Cell Biology, Washington State University, for collaboration with Dr. Hirokazu Inoue and Dr. Chizu Ishii, Department of Regulation Biology, Saitama University, Urawa, Japan. Their cooperative research will be directed toward studying DNA repair in the filamentous fungus, Neurospora crassa. Filamentous fungi are important in biosynthesis of many products and as plant and animal pathogens. Neurospora has a UV endonuclease apparently unique to certain fungi and a unique third epistasis group not involved in excision repair of pyrimidine dimers, suggesting that filamentous fungi may handle DNA repair somewhat differently than other organisms.
Exploration of DNA repair, and particularly of differences, is important in understanding the mechanism and evolution of these processes and may have practical uses in pathogen control. Experiments will be planned and begun to explore the possibility that the uvs-2 gene, thought to participate in chromatin modification, alters dimer excision. Other experiments will be planned and possibly begun to examine dimer like structures remaining in the DNA of uvs-2 strains following UV irradiation and subsequent growth. Isolation and characterization of a completely inactive allele also will be begun. Cloning experiments will be used to obtain the genes in the uvs-3 epistasis group, which has no counterpart in yeast, mammals, or bacteria. The visit supported by this award will be mutually beneficial because it will allow the two-way exchange of expertise between the only two groups currently studying DNA repair in the filamentous fungus, Neurospora crassa. ***
