Pythium irregulare Assembly and Gene Annotation

About the Pythium irregulare Genome

Pythium irregulare is highly pathogenic to a wide range of cereal and legume hosts, causing significant loss in yield and vigor.It is a soilborne pathogen found world wide on ~200 hosts. Like most members of the Pythium species, it causes damping off (i.e. blight) and root rot of plants located in both greenhouses and the field especially under moist conditions that favor the spread of this pathogen through zoospores. While P. irregulare can be isolated by itself from a host, it is often found in conjunction with another Pythium species.

It belongs to the group oomycetes which was originally classified among the fungi, due to its morphological and functional similarities. They are now classifed as protists based on modern insights on phylogentic relationship with photosynthetic organisms such as brown algae and diatoms.

Assembly

The assembly for the genome was provided by Pythium Genome Database[and is also available from the EMBL/Genbank/DDBJ databases under the accession GCA_000387425.2

Annotation

The protein coding genes are imported from the Pythium Genome Database and 65 ncRNAs were predicted using Ensembl pipeline.

References

1. Pythium Genome Database.
   
2. Genome sequence of the necrotrophic plant pathogen Pythium ultimum reveals original pathogenicity mechanisms and effector repertoire.
   Lvesque CA, Brouwer H, Cano L, Hamilton JP, Holt C, Huitema E, Raffaele S, Robideau GP, Thines M, Win J et al. 2010. Genome Biol.. 11:R73.
3. Comparative genomics reveals insight into virulence strategies of plant pathogenic oomycetes.
   Adhikari BN, Hamilton JP, Zerillo MM, Tisserat N, Lvesque CA, Buell CR. 2013. PLoS ONE. 8:e75072.
4. Carbohydrate-active enzymes in pythium and their role in plant cell wall and storage polysaccharide degradation.
   Zerillo MM, Adhikari BN, Hamilton JP, Buell CR, Lvesque CA, Tisserat N. 2013. PLoS ONE. 8:e72572.

Picture credit: Creeping bent grass infected with Pythium irregulare hyphae - Photo taken by Dr. Marcelo Zerillo in the laboratory of Ned Tisserat

More information

General information about this species can be found in Wikipedia.