ARTICLE https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19355-y OPEN Establishment of Neurospora crassa as a model organism for fungal virology Shinji Honda1, Ana Eusebio-Cope2, Shuhei Miyashita3, Ayumi Yokoyama1, Annisa Aulia2, Sabitree Shahi 2, ✉ Hideki Kondo2 & Nobuhiro Suzuki 2 The filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa is used as a model organism for genetics, devel- opmental biology and molecular biology. Remarkably, it is not known to host or to be sus- 1234567890():,; ceptible to infection with any viruses. Here, we identify diverse RNA viruses in N. crassa and other Neurospora species, and show that N. crassa supports the replication of these viruses as well as some viruses from other fungi. Several encapsidated double-stranded RNA viruses and capsid-less positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses can be experimentally introduced into N. crassa protoplasts or spheroplasts. This allowed us to examine viral replication and RNAi-mediated antiviral responses in this organism. We show that viral infection upregulates the transcription of RNAi components, and that Dicer proteins (DCL-1, DCL-2) and an Argonaute (QDE-2) participate in suppression of viral replication. Our study thus establishes N. crassa as a model system for the study of host-virus interactions. 1 Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Fukui 910-1193, Japan. 2 Institute of Plant Science and Resources, Okayama University, Kurashiki, Okayama 710-0046, Japan. 3 Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, 468-1, Aramaki-Aza- Aoba, Sendai 980-0845, Japan. ✉ email:
[email protected] NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | (2020) 11:5627 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19355-y | www.nature.com/naturecommunications 1 ARTICLE NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19355-y ungal viruses or mycoviruses are omnipresent in all major mechanism in this fungus35.