title: Draft Genome Sequence of Colletotrichum falcatum - A Prelude on Screening of Red Rot Pathogen in Sugarcane.
abstract: Colletotrichum falcatum, a concealed fungal ascomycete causes red rot, which is a serious disease in sugarcane. It infects economically important stalk tissues, considered as store house of sugar in sugarcane. The study is to find genetic complexities of C. falcatum in establishing this as a stalk infecting pathogen and to decipher the unique lifestyle of this pathogen using NGS technology. We report the draft genome of C. falcatum of about 48.16 Mb in size with 12,270 genes. The genome sequences were compared with other fungal species which revealed that C. falcatum is closely related to C. graminicola and C.sublineola the causal organisms of anthracnose in maize and sorghum. These results brought a new revelation to explore the lifestyle of this unique pathogen which is specialized to infect sugarcane stalk tissues in detail.
authors.affiliation: Plant Pathology Section, ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore 641007, India.
authors.forename: Rasappa
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Viswanathan
authors.affiliation: Plant Pathology Section, ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore 641007, India.
authors.forename: Chandrasekaran Naveen
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Prasanth
authors.affiliation: Plant Pathology Section, ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore 641007, India.
authors.forename: Palaniyandi
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Malathi
authors.affiliation: Plant Pathology Section, ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore 641007, India.
authors.forename: Amalraj Ramesh
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Sundar
keywords: Genetic complexities; NGS Technology.; Phylogenomic analysis