title: Genus-Wide Comparative Genome Analyses of Colletotrichum Species Reveal Specific Gene Family Losses and Gains during Adaptation to Specific Infection Lifestyles.
abstract: Members from Colletotrichum genus adopt a diverse range of lifestyles during infection of plants and represent a group of agriculturally devastating pathogens. In this study, we present the draft genome of Colletotrichum incanum from the spaethianum clade of Colletotrichum and the comparative analyses with five other Colletotrichum species from distinct lineages. We show that the C. incanum strain, originally isolated from Japanese daikon radish, is able to infect both eudicot plants, such as certain ecotypes of the eudicot Arabidopsis, and monocot plants, such as lily. Being closely related to Colletotrichum species both in the graminicola clade, whose members are restricted strictly to monocot hosts, and to the destructivum clade, whose members are mostly associated with dicot infections, C. incanum provides an interesting model system for comparative genomics to study how fungal pathogens adapt to monocot and dicot hosts. Genus-wide comparative genome analyses reveal that Colletotrichum species have tailored profiles of their carbohydrate-degrading enzymes according to their infection lifestyles. In addition, we show evidence that positive selection acting on secreted and nuclear localized proteins that are highly conserved may be important in adaptation to specific hosts or ecological niches.
authors.affiliation: RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, Yokohama, Japan.
authors.forename: Pamela
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gan
authors.affiliation: Research Institute for Biological Sciences Okayama, Okayama, Japan.
authors.forename: Mari
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Narusaka
authors.affiliation: RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, Yokohama, Japan.
authors.forename: Naoyoshi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kumakura
authors.affiliation: RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, Yokohama, Japan Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo, Tokyo 113–0033, Japan.
authors.forename: Ayako
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tsushima
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.
authors.forename: Yoshitaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Takano
authors.affiliation: Research Institute for Biological Sciences Okayama, Okayama, Japan.
authors.forename: Yoshihiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Narusaka
authors.affiliation: RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, Yokohama, Japan Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo, Tokyo 113–0033, Japan ken.shirasu@riken.jp.
authors.forename: Ken
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shirasu
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological / Q000235:genetics*; D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics / Q000382:microbiology; D020231:Colletotrichum / Q000235:genetics / Q000472:pathogenicity; D060467:Disease Resistance / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D018745:Genome, Plant; D005810:Multigene Family / Q000235:genetics; D010802:Phylogeny; D010935:Plant Diseases / Q000235:genetics* / Q000382:microbiology; D013045:Species Specificity
keywords: Colletotrichum; comparative genomics; evolutionary biology; genome assembly; hemibiotrophic fungi; plant pathogen