The fungus Neurospora nemesis (N. nemesis) is an infectious pathogen of corn plants. N. nemesis infections can destroy corn crops. Recent studies have shown that when exposed to N. nemesis, corn can produce and export a miRNA that targets the fungal gene FCOA. In fungi such as N. nemesis, the FCOA gene codes for a transcriptional co-activator. Like many co-activators, FCOA is a protein that assists transcription factors in binding to DNA. The miRNA produced by corn in response to N. nemesis is exported from the corn and then taken up by N. nemesis. This miRNA is completely complementary to a highly conserved region of the FCOA coding sequence. Even though the miRNA is highly specific to the mRNA of the FCOA gene, researchers found that when N. nemesis was exposed to this miRNA expression of a number of other genes in the fungus were down-regulated. Explain how expression of genes other than FCOA could be down-regulated. EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CORN AND FUNGUS IS IN THIS