Fusarium solani Assembly and Gene Annotation

About the Fusarium solani genome

Fusarium solani is also referred to by its sexual name, Nectria haematococca, and was referred to as such in earlier versions of Ensembl Fungi.

As pathogens, members of this complex are responsible for disease on about 100 genera of plants. They represent one of the most important group of pathogens associated with opportunistic fungal infections and keratitis in humans, a condition in which the front part of the eye becomes inflamed. These fungi can survive in extreme environments. Fusarium solani is among the fungal species that were found in the highly radioactive inner parts of the damaged nuclear reactor at Chernobyl.

Fusarium solani has been found growing in the caves at Lascaux in France where it is damaging the 15 000 year old paintings. The ability of these fungi to adapt to so many different environments shows their genetic plasticity and metabolic diversity.

The most extensively studied species of the Fusarium solani complex is the
"mating population
" (MP) VI of Fusarium solani which is also called Nectria haematococca or Haematonectria haematococca. The term
"mating population
" defines a group of isolates that are sexually fertile with one another, indicating that they are a biological species.

Fusarium solani MPVI isolates can live in many habitats and analyses have demonstrated that the genes controlling the ability of individual isolates to colonise specific habitats are located on conditionally-dispensable supernumerary chromosomes (
"CD chromosomes
"). CD chromosomes are defined as supernumerary chromosomes that are not required for growth under all conditions but confer an adaptive advantage in certain habitats. Research has demonstrated that in Fusarium solani MPVI, genes on these chromosomes are involved in resistance to plant antimicrobials, utilisation of specific carbon and nitrogen sources and in host-specific pathogenicity. The properties of these chromosomes suggest that some of these genes and perhaps even entire chromosomes might have been acquired through horizontal gene transfer and have properties similar to the genomic islands of bacteria.

Optical mapping revealed that the Fusarium solani MPVI isolate 77-13-4 genome has 17 chromosomes ranging from 530 kb to 6.52 Mb and an overall size of the genome of 54.43 Mb.

Annotation

Annotation of Fusarium solani is provided by JGI. Non coding RNA genes have been annotated using tRNAScan-SE (Lowe, T.M. and Eddy, S.R. 1997), RFAM (Griffiths-Jones et al 2005), and RNAmmer (Lagesen K.,et al 2007); additional analysis tools have also been applied.

References

1. The genome of Nectria haematococca: contribution of supernumerary chromosomes to gene expansion.
   Coleman JJ, Rounsley SD, Rodriguez-Carres M, Kuo A, Wasmann CC, Grimwood J, Schmutz J, Taga M, White GJ, Zhou S et al. 2009. PLoS Genet.. 5:e1000618.

Picture credit: The School of Plant Sciences, The University of Arizona

Other data

EST sequences were mapped to the genome using Exonerate.

More information

General information about this species can be found in Wikipedia.