Location: Crop Improvement and Protection Research
Project Number: 2038-22000-019-069-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Sep 1, 2025
End Date: Oct 30, 2026
Objective:
The objective is to develop a systematic approach for assembling the nuclear genome of different formae speciales of Fusarium oxysporum using long read sequencing technology. Collaborator will provide cultures or high molecular weight DNA from a range of taxa for genomic sequencing using Oxford Nanopore and PacBio HiFi sequencing data and assist in assembling the nuclear genomes.
Approach:
A wide range of F. oxysporum taxa were sequenced by Illumina and their genomes assembled (ca 500 to date). Several different bioinformatic approaches were used to assemble these genomes but due to a high amount of repetitive sequences the assemblies are fragmented. Using several approaches we have been successful in assembling telomere to telomere assemblies for several taxa. The objective of this additional funding is to expand the scope of this research to include complete genome assemblies from a wider range of taxa that will be used in our grant funded project. This in turn improves our ability to identify unique sequences to target for design of diagnostic assays.