Skip to main content
ARS Home » Northeast Area » Frederick, Maryland » Foreign Disease-Weed Science Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #425124
Research Project: Discovery and Development of Microbial-Based Biological Control Agents for Use Against Invasive Weeds in the United States

Location: Foreign Disease-Weed Science Research

Title: Genome resource announcement for the weed biological control agent Colletotrichum shisoi FDWSRU 21-072

Author
item GROBEN, GLEN - Oak Ridge Institute For Science And Education (ORISE)
item Fulcher, Michael

Submitted to: PhytoFrontiers
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/11/2025
Publication Date: 11/24/2025
Citation: Groben, G., Fulcher, M.R. 2025. Genome resource announcement for the weed biological control agent Colletotrichum shisoi FDWSRU 21-072. PhytoFrontiers. https://doi.org/10.1094/PHYTOFR-08-25-0075-A.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1094/PHYTOFR-08-25-0075-A

Interpretive Summary: Research on microbial plant pathogens increasingly depends on high-quality genome sequences. ARS scientists in Maryland have developed a plant pathogen as a biological control agent for invasive perilla mint, a toxic weed that causes pneumonia in cattle. To better understand how this agent suppresses perilla, advanced DNA sequencing technology was used to study the pathogen's genome. This will help when evaluating the safety and effectiveness of the control agent and provide data for comparing it to other invasive, introduced, or emerging pathogens. This study benefits livestock producers in 22 states where perilla needs to be controlled to preserve pasture and forage quality.

Technical Abstract: Colletotrichum shisoi is a fungal pathogen of Perilla frutescens, a mint species cultivated in some countries but considered invasive in the United States. This resource announcement reports the availability of a new, highly contiguous genome generated from the North American C. shisoi isolate FDWSRU 21-072, which has been proposed for use as a biological control agent of invasive P. frutescens. Long-read PacBio sequencing produced a genome assembly of 48 contigs and 86.9 Mb, a significant improvement over a previous assembly of 20,745 contigs and 69.7 Mb from the Japanese Type culture. The C. shisoi genome contains a large amount of repetitive, non-coding sequence content, and the improved assembly will be useful for comparative studies of Colletotrichum species.