Background: The dung-inhabiting ascomycete fungus Podospora anserina is a model used to study various aspects of eukaryotic and fungal biology, such as ageing, prions and sexual development.
RIP (repeat‐induced point mutation) is a silencing process discovered in Neurospora crassa and so far clearly established only in this species as a currently occurring process. RIP acts premeiotically on duplicated sequences, resulting in C‐G to T‐A mutations, with a striking preference for CpA/TpG dinucleotides. In Podospora anserina, an RIP‐like event was observed after several rounds of sexual reproduction in a strain with a 40 kb tandem duplication resulting from homologous integration of a cosmid in the mating‐type region. The 9 kb sequenced show 106 C‐G to T‐A transitions, with 80% of the replaced cytosines located in CpA dinucleotides. This led to the alteration of at least six genes, two of which were unidentified. This RIP‐like event extended to single‐copy genes between the two members of the repeat. The overall data show that the silencing process is strikingly similar to a light form of RIP, unaccompanied by C‐methylation. Interestingly, the N. crassa zeta–eta sequence, which acts as a potent de novo C‐methylation RIP signal in this species, is weakly methylated when introduced into P. anserina. These results demonstrate that RIP, at least in light forms, can occur beyond N. crassa.
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