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Title: Almost finished: the complete genome sequence of Mycosphaerella graminicola

Author
item KEMA, GERT - PLANT RES. INT. NETHER
item GRIGORIEV, IGOR - DOE JOINT GENM INST.
item AERTS, ANDREA - DOE JOINT GENM INST.
item SALAMOV, ASAF - DOE JOINT GENM INST.
item TU, HANK - DOE JOINT GENM INST.
item SHAPIRO, HARRIS - DOE JOINT GENM INST.
item BRISTOW, JIM - DOE JOINT GENM INST.
item GRIMWOOD, JANE - STANFORD HUMAN GENM CTR.
item Goodwin, Stephen - Steve

Submitted to: Fungal Genetics Conference Proceedings
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/7/2007
Publication Date: 3/30/2007
Citation: Kema, G.H., Grigoriev, I., Aerts, A., Salamov, A., Tu, H., Shapiro, H., Bristow, J., Grimwood, J., Goodwin, S.B. 2007. Almost finished: the complete genome sequence of Mycosphaerella graminicola. Fungal Genetics Conference Proceedings [abstract]. Abstract No. 228.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Mycosphaerella graminicola causes septoria tritici blotch of wheat. An 8.9x shotgun sequence of bread wheat strain IPO323 was generated through the Community Sequencing Program of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute (JGI), and was finished at the Stanford Human Genome Center. The genome of M. graminicola contains 39.6 Mb. All available ESTs (37,747) were placed on the finished assembly to assess completeness. In addition, 1793 DArT markers were sequenced at JGI and aligned with the physical map. The genetic and physical maps showed near-perfect colinearity, demonstrating the high quality of each. Fifteen scaffolds represent entire chromosomes from 548 kb to 6 Mb. Six scaffolds (ranging from 21 kb to 2.4 Mb) contain a single telomere and could connect in any combination. Two additional scaffolds do not contain telomeres and only 17 gaps remain to be closed. These data suggest that isolate IPO323 contains 18-20 chromosomes, which represents the highest number of chromosomes reported among ascomycetes. This conclusion is corroborated by high-density genetic linkage maps and detailed pulsed-field gel analyses. The complete mitochondrial sequence is a circular genome of 43,947 bp. The machine annotation predicted 13,413 genes, of which 1126 have been annotated manually (http://www.jgi.doe.gov/Mgraminicola). Gene annotations indicate that M. graminicola has fewer genes per family than other plant-pathogenic filamentous fungi, which may reflect its mixed biotrophic and necrotrophic lifestyles. This is the first nearly finished genome of any filamentous plant pathogen and is of great importance for comparative genomics involving other Dothideales, such as the banana Black Sigatoka pathogen M. fijiensis that currently is sequenced at the ~7.1x level.