Aspergillus flavus Genomics

Gary A. Payne and Ralph A. Dean at North Carolina State University received funding from the Microbial Genome Sequencing Project, USDA National Research Initiative to completely sequence the genome of A. flavus strain NRRL 3357 to the level of 5 fold sequence coverage.

Whole genome sequencing was done at The Institute for Genomic Research, Rockville, Maryland under the supervision of William Nierman. Jennifer Wortman directed the assembly and automated annotation.

The USDA/ARS/SRRC in New Orleans, Louisiana provided its Expressed Sequence Tag (EST) genomic database for A. flavus as a matching resource towards the complete genomic characterization of A. flavus. They also provided funds for fine closure and finishing of the sequence. Jiujiang Yu at USDA/ARS/SRRC lead the EST sequencing program and has directed the sequencing efforts supported by the USDA/ARS.

Sequence reads from the 5 X coverage were released to NCBI in July 2005. The annotated genome was released in October 2005 and can be accessed through the genome browser available at www.aspergillusflavus.org/genomics. Manual annotation will be coordinated through North Carolina State University.

Fusarium verticillioides Genomics

Fusarium verticillioides strain 7600 (FRC M3125 = NRRL 20956) is being sequenced by the Broad Institute as part of itsFungal Genome Initiative. A first release of the genome sequence consists of a ~4X whole-genome shotgun assembly and has been deposited at GenBank under the project accession AAIM01000000. The Fusarium verticillioides Database is available here.