produce barren fruiting bodies with few ascospores (sexual spores). The majority of these homozygous mutations cause abnormal meiosis (e.g. disturbed chromosome pairing or disturbed pachytene or diplotene). The number of genes affecting the diploid stage was estimated to be at least 435 (about 4% of the total number of 9,730 genes). Thus, outcrossing, promoted by the necessity for union of opposite mating types, likely provides the benefit of masking recessive mutations that would otherwise be deleterious to sexual spore formation (see Complementation (genetics)). Current research Neurospora crassa is not only a model organism for the study of phenotypic types in knock-out variants, but a particularly useful organism widely used in computational biology and the circadian clock. It has a natural reproductive cycle of 22 hours and is influenced by external factors such as light and temperature. Knock out variants of wild type N. crassa are widely studied to determine the influence of particular genes (see Frequency (gene)). See also Notes and references References . . External links Neurospora crassa genome Montenegro-Montero A. (2010) "The Almighty Fungi: The Revolutionary Neurospora crassa". A historical view of the many contributions of this organism to molecular biology. Sordariales Fungal models Fungus genetics