Skip to main content
ARS Home » Midwest Area » West Lafayette, Indiana » Crop Production and Pest Control Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #203102
Title: Sequencing the Major Mycosphaerella Pathogens of Wheat and Banana

Author
item KEMA, GERT - WAGENINGEN, THE NETERHLAN
item Dunkle, Larry
item CHURCHILL, ALICE - CORNELL
item CARLIER, JEAN - MONTPELLIER, FRANCE
item JAMES, ANDY - MERIDA, MEXICO
item SOUZA, MANOEL - EMBRAPA, BRAZIL
item CROUS, PEDRO - FUNGAL BIODIVERSITY, NETH
item ROUX, NICOLAS - MONTPELLIER, FRANCE
item VAN DER LEE, THEO - WAGENINGEN, NETHERLANDS
item WITTENBERG, ALEXANDER - WAGENINGEN, NETHERLANDS
item LINDQUIST, ERIKA - JOINT GENOME INST. WALNUT
item GRIGORIEV, IGOR - JOINT GENOME INST. CA
item BRISTOW, JIM - JOINT GENOME INST. CA
item Goodwin, Stephen - Steve

Submitted to: Plant and Animal Genome VX Conference Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/1/2006
Publication Date: 1/13/2007
Citation: Kema, G.H., Dunkle, L.D., Churchill, A.C., Carlier, J., James, A., Souza, M.T., Crous, P., Roux, N., Van Der Lee, T.A., Wittenberg, A., Lindquist, E., Grigoriev, I., Bristow, J., Goodwin, S.B. 2007. Sequencing the Major Mycosphaerella Pathogens of Wheat and Banana. Plant and Animal Genome VX Conference Abstracts. Available: http://www.intl-pag.org/15/abstracts/PAG15_W23_162.html

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Mycosphaerella is one of the largest genera of plant pathogenic fungi with more than 1,000 named species, many of which are important pathogens causing leaf spotting diseases in a wide variety of crops including cereals, citrus, banana, eucalypts, soft fruits, and horticultural crops. A few species of Mycosphaerella cause disease in humans and other vertebrates. An international project was initiated to sequence the genomes of M. graminicola and M. fijiensis, two of the most economically important pathogens of wheat and banana, respectively, along with 40,000 ESTs from M. fijiensis and the related maize pathogen Cercospora zeae-maydis, through the Community Sequencing Program sponsored by the U.S. DOE-Joint Genome Institute. The 9x M. graminicola sequencing is complete and was made public November 1, 2006 following automated and manual annotation. Due to the very good assembly statistics as well as a >2000-marker DArT linkage map that was aligned to the genome, JGI decided to finish the M. graminicola genome at the Stanford Human Genome Center. The majority of chromosomes have been sequenced completely including both telomeres. These data indicate that M. graminicola has both the largest chromosome number and the smallest chromosome sizes recorded among filamentous ascomycetes. The M. fijiensis EST sequencing has resulted in more than 30,000 ESTs and the genome sequencing is currently at approximately 2.5x, which enabled us to revise the genome size estimate of M. fijiensis to approximately 68 Mb, which is 70% larger than that for M. graminicola. The current status of both sequencing projects will be discussed.