title: Complete mitochondrial genome of the endophytic fungus Pestalotiopsis fici: features and evolution.
abstract: Endophytic fungi (EF) live within plants and have profound impacts on plant communities. They are astonishingly diverse but poorly studied at the genome level. Herein, we assembled the mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of the EF Pestalotiopsis fici, annotated and compared it with those of other relatives to better understand the evolution of the EF lineage. Except for standard fungal mitochondrial genes, the 69,529-bp circular mitogenome of P. fici harbors 18 introns acquired possibly through lateral transfer from other fungi and nine free-standing open reading frames with some scarcely seen in fungal mitogenomes. BLAST analysis detected no obvious duplication events of large fragments between mitochondrial and nuclear genomes of the fungus. Transcription analyses validated the expression of all mitochondrial genes, while most genes showed higher expression on rice than in two other media. The mitogenome of P. fici is highly syntenic with the Xylariales species Annulohypoxylon stygium and the endophyte Epichloe festucae var. lolii, but lacks synteny with another endophyte Penicillium polonicum. This study reports the first mitogenome of Pestalotiopsis and the third published mitogenome from an EF and provides insights into the evolution of the EF lineage.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Chemistry, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, 030006, China.
authors.forename: Shu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China.
authors.forename: Xiu-Na
authors.initials: XN
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China.
authors.forename: Xiao-Ling
authors.initials: XL
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China.
authors.forename: Xing-Zhong
authors.initials: XZ
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, 030006, China. zhangyj2008@sxu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yong-Jie
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D005656:Fungal Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D054629:Genome, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D013098:Xylariales / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D005656:Fungal Proteins
keywords: Endophyte; Mitochondrial genome; Pestalotiopsis fici; RNA-seq; Xylariales