Genome Sequence Resource of the Head Blight Pathogens Fusarium asiaticum and F. graminearum Isolated from Cereal Crops and Gramineous Weeds in Korea and China

Abstract

Head blight is a serious fungal disease that results in yield loss and mycotoxin contamination in cereal crops worldwide. Head blight is primarily caused by members of the Fusarium graminearum species complex (FGSC), which consists of at least 16 species, including Fusarium asiaticum and Fusarium graminearum. FGSC members produce trichothecene mycotoxins and can be divided into four groups (chemotypes) depending on the type of trichothecenes produced: NIV (production of nivalenol), 3ADON (production of 3-acetyldeoxynivalenol), 15ADON (production of 15-acetyldeoxynivalenol), and NX-2 (production of 3α-acetoxy, 7α, 15-dihydroxy-12, and 13-epoxytrichothe-9-ene). Whereas F. graminearum mainly causes head blight in wheat-producing areas, F. asiaticum is associated primarily with rice head blight in eastern Asia. To date, the NCBI database archives 116 assembled genome sequences of F. graminearum, but only four accessions correspond to F. asiaticum. Accessions for three F. graminearum strains (PH-1 = NRRL 31084, CS3005, and FG-12) are chromosome assemblies (i.e., include contigs/scaffolds consisting of full-length or nearly full-length chromosomes), but none of the F. asiaticum accessions is a chromosome assembly. This announcement reports the assembled genome sequences of nine F. asiaticum strains and seven F. graminearum strains isolated from rice, wheat, barley, and other gramineous plants in Korea and China. [Figure: see text] Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.

Keywords

• chromosome-level assembly
• Fusarium asiaticum
• Fusarium graminearum
• head blight disease
• secondary metabolite gene cluster