Luigi Faino

Genome-wide structural variants uncover strain-specific genes and evolutionary genomic determinants of a fungal maize pathogen

This study identifies strain-specific genes and evolutionary genomic features in the fungal maize pathogen Colletotrichum graminicola through structural variant analysis and machine learning.

In genomes we trust: assessing genomic reliability within the family Nectriaceae

The paper evaluates genomic resources across the Nectriaceae family, identifying metadata gaps, assembly quality issues, and phylogenomic inconsistencies.

A structurally unique effector shared between Verticillium dahliae and Fusarium oxysporum is involved in cotton defoliation and virulence on other hosts

Centromere evolution in the fungal genus Verticillium

This study identifies and characterizes centromeres in ten Verticillium species, revealing conserved and variable features linked to repetitive elements and genome evolution.

Long Read Annotation (LoReAn): automated eukaryotic genome annotation based on long-read cDNA sequencing

LoReAn improves genome annotation by integrating long-read cDNA sequencing with other data types, outperforming existing pipelines in gene structure prediction and discovery.

Dynamic virulence-related regions of the fungal plant pathogen Verticillium dahliae display remarkably enhanced sequence conservation

The paper shows that lineage-specific regions in V. dahliae are more conserved than core regions, suggesting host adaptation through presence/absence polymorphisms rather than sequence divergence.

How transposons drive evolution of virulence in a fungal pathogen

This study shows transposons drive adaptive genome evolution in Verticillium dahliae by enabling segmental duplications and contributing to genomic plasticity, which impacts pathogen aggressiveness.