Life Sciences Commons^™

Combating A Global Threat To A Clonal Crop: Banana Black Sigatoka Pathogen Pseudocercospora Fijiensis (Synonym Mycosphaerella Fijiensis) Genomes Reveal Clues For Disease Control, Rafael E. Arango-Isaza, Caucasella Diaz-Trujillo, Braham Deep Singh Dhillon, Andrea L. Aerts, Jean Carlier, Charles F. Crane, Tristan V. De Jong, Ineke M. De Vries, Robert A. Dietrich, Andrew D. Farmer, Claudia Fortes Fereira, Suzana A L Garcia, Mauricio Guzmán, Richard C. Hamelin, Erika A. Lindquist, Rahim Mehrabi, Olman Quiros, Jeremy Schmultz, Harris J. Shapiro, Elizabeth Reynolds, Gabriel Scalliet, Manoel Teixeira Souza, Ioannis Stergiopoulos, Theo A J Van Der Lee, Pierre J G M De Wit, Marie Françoise Zapater, Lute Harm Zwiers, Igor V. Grigoriev, Stephen B. Goodwin, Gert Hj J Kema

Department of Botany and Plant Pathology Faculty Publications

Black Sigatoka or black leaf streak disease, caused by the Dothideomycete fungus Pseudocercospora fijiensis (previously: Mycosphaerella fijiensis), is the most significant foliar disease of banana worldwide. Due to the lack of effective host resistance, management of this disease requires frequent fungicide applications, which greatly increase the economic and environmental costs to produce banana. Weekly applications in most banana plantations lead to rapid evolution of fungicide-resistant strains within populations causing disease-control failures throughout the world. Given its extremely high economic importance, two strains of P. fijiensis were sequenced and assembled with the aid of a new genetic linkage map. The 74-Mb …