10th INTERNATIONAL VERTICILLIUM SYMPOSIUM 16-20 ...

VERTICILLIUM COMPARATIVE GENOMICSSTEVEN J. KLOSTERMAN 1 , KRISHNA V. SUBBARAO 2 , KATHERINE F.DOBINSON 3 , PAOLA VERONESE 4 , BART P. H. J. THOMMA 5 , MARIA D.GARCIA-PEDRAJAS 6 , AMY ANCHIETA 1 , ZEHUA CHEN 7 , DEZ BARBARA 8 ,RONNIE DE JONGE 5 , PARTHA SANTHANAM 5 , KARUNAKARANMARUTHACHALAM 2 , ZAHI ATALLAH 2 , STEFAN AMYOTTE 3 , PATRIKINDERBITZIN 2 , ZAHI PAZ 9 , DAVID I. HEIMAN 7 , SARAH YOUNG 7 ,QIANDONG ZENG 7 , REINHARD ENGELS 7 , MICHAEL KOEHRSEN 7 ,JAMES GALAGAN 7 , BRUCE BIRREN 7 , CHRISTINA CUOMO 7 , SEOGCHANKANG 10 , SCOTT E. GOLD 9 AND LI-JUN MA 71 USDA-ARS, Salinas, CA, USA; 2 University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA; 3 Agriculture andAgri-Food Canada, London, Ontario, Canada; 4 North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA;5 Wageningen University and Research Centre, Wageningen, The Netherlands; 6 Estacion ExperimentalLa Mayora, CSIC, Malaga, Spain; 7 The Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA, USA; 8 University ofWarwick, Wellesbourne, Warwick, UK 9 University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA; 10 Pennsylvania StateUniversity, University Park, PA, USAVerticillium dahliae, the cause of Verticillium wilt on economically importantcrops and ornamentals, exhibits extraordinary genetic plasticity, capable of colonizinga broad range of plant hosts in diverse ecological niches. One factor that has hinderedprogress in developing new control strategies for Verticillium wilt is our limitedunderstanding of the biology and ecology of V. dahliae and related pathogens. Wehave employed a genomic approach to compare V. dahliae to a related species, V.albo-atrum, that produces distinctive survival structures and exhibits host rangedifferences. A 7.5X assembly of the 33.8 Mb genome of a lettuce isolate of V.dahliae, in addition to a 4X assembly of an alfalfa isolate of V. albo-atrum are nowpublicly available via the Broad Institute. About 38,000 EST reads from three cDNAlibraries of V. dahliae were generated, and the genomes of both species have beenannotated. Through comparative analyses, we have identified four regions on twochromosomes that are specific to V. dahliae. Each of these spans ~ 300 kb and areenriched in repetitive DNA. The expression of V. dahliae-specific genes encoded inthese regions was confirmed by the presence of corresponding ESTs. We are currentlyexamining these regions and conducting genome-wide analyses of predicted proteinsets from both fungi to gain insight into diversity, pathogenicity, and other aspects ofVerticillium spp. biology.24