RDP1 — Neurospora crassa

Summary

NCU02178 (RDP1, sad-1) on Neurospora crassa chromosome 1 encodes an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (EC 2.7.7.48) with RdRP activity and RNA binding, placing it in the eukaryotic RdRP family. The gene is associated with a wide range of biological processes, including post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS), RNAi-mediated co-transcriptional gene silencing (CTGS), siRNA processing, and RNAi-like chromatin silencing at centromeres and subtelomeric and mating-type region heterochromatin. It is also linked to sexual reproduction, ascus development, sexual sporulation, meiotic prophase I, meiotic drive, karyogamy, syngamy, cell-cell fusion, defense response, and maintenance of G0 phase. The protein localizes to the RNA-directed RNA polymerase complex (RDRC), chromatin, cytoplasm, cytosol, and nucleus. Related genes in other species, such as Fusarium oxysporum and Verticillium dahliae, are linked by sequence similarity.