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Updated: Sep 20, 2026

Sexual Crosses with the Mucoromycete Phycomyces blakesleeanus
Published on: June 6, 2025
Sex in fungi: lessons of gene regulation
Cristina A J Souza1, Carla C Silva, Adlane V-B Ferreira
1Departamento de Biologia Geral, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil.
Abstract:
Fungi have been very useful for gene regulation studies. Mating implicates in a series of events influenced by many types of environmental input that are interpreted into regulatory pathways, including signal transduction. Although various aspects of mating and signal transduction in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae have long been characterized, recent findings in filamentous fungi indicate that pheromones and pheromone receptors may be essential for mating partner recognition and also for nucleus recognition in sorting before meiosis. A brief overview on mating-type genes of ascomycete fungi and recent contributions to the understanding of their role in the regulation of multicellularity and sexual dimorphism is presented in this review.
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