Draft Genome Sequence of the Asian Pear Scab Pathogen, Venturia nashicola

Abstract

Venturia nashicola, which causes scab disease of Asian pear, is a host-specific, biotrophic fungus, with a sexual stage that occurs during saprobic growth. V. nashicola is endemic to Asia and is regarded as a quarantine threat to Asian pear production outside of this continent. Currently, fungicide applications are routinely used to control scab disease. However, fungicide resistance in V. nashicola, as in other fungal pathogens, is an ongoing challenge and alternative control or prevention measures that include, for example, the deployment of durable host resistance, are required. A close relative of V. nashicola, V. pirina, causes scab disease of European pear. European pear displays non-host resistance (NHR) to V. nashicola and Asian pears are non-hosts of V. pirina. It is anticipated that the host specificity of these two fungi is governed by differences in their effector arsenals, with a subset responsible for activating NHR. The Pyrus-Venturia pathosystems provide a unique opportunity to dissect the underlying genetics of non-host interactions and to understand coevolution in relation to this potentially more durable form of resistance. Here, we present the first V. nashicola draft whole genome sequence (WGS), which is made up of 40,800 scaffolds (totalling 45 Mb) and 11,094 predicted genes. Of these genes, 1,232 are predicted to encode a secreted protein by SignalP, with 273 of these predicted to be effectors by EffectorP. The V. nashicola WGS will enable comparison to the WGSs of other Venturia spp. to identify effectors that potentially activate NHR in the pear scab pathosystems.