The Genome of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. phaseoli Provides Insight into the Evolution of Genomes and Effectors of Fusarium oxysporum Species

Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. phaseoli, the causal agent of cowpea fusarium wilt, is a serious threat to cowpea production in China. In this study, a sample of cowpea fusarium wilt was identified as Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. phaseoli using the methods of morphological characters and molecular detection. We further reported the first genome assembly for Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. phaseoli, with 53.7 Mb genome sequence comprising 14,694 genes. Comparative genomic analysis among five Fusarium oxysporum genomes showed that four accessory chromosomes in the five Fusarium oxysporum display similar characteristics, with low sequence similarity (55.35%, vs. overall average of 81.76%), low gene density (2.18 genes/10 kb vs. 3.02 genes/Mb) and highly transposable element density (TEs) (15.01/100 kb vs. 4.89/100 kb), indicating that variable accessory chromosomes are the main source of Fusarium oxysporum evolution. We identified a total of 100 Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. phaseoli-specific effectors in the genome and found 13 specific effector genes located in large insertion or deletion regions, suggesting that insertion or deletion events can cause the emergence of species-specific effectors in Fusarium oxysporum. Our genome assembly of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. phaseoli provides a valuable resource for the study of cowpea fusarium wilt, and the comparative genomic study of Fusarium oxysporum could contribute to the knowledge of genome and effector-associated pathogenicity evolution in Fusarium oxysporum study.