Nanopore sequencing of Rice blast fungal isolates from Italy
Rice blast disease in Italy is thought to be caused by a clonal lineage of the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae that presumably came with the import of rice from east Asia. We would like to study the current status of variations in the population due to local adaptations to rice cultivars and other environmental conditions. It is likely that these adaptations are achieved by mutations in key genes (including effector genes) and/or chromosomal rearrangements. We sequenced the genomes of ten M. oryzae isolates from Italy by Nanopore sequencing technology to find out if there are any such signs of adaptions in the fungus.