High-Quality Genome Assembly of Pseudopestalotiopsis theae, the Pathogenic Fungus Causing Tea Gray Blight

Tea gray blight is one of the most serious foliar diseases of tea tree, caused by the plant-pathogenic fungus Pseudopestalotiopsis theae, which can affect production and quality of tea worldwide. We generated a highly contiguous, 50.41-Mbp genome assembly (N-50 = 1.30 Mbp) of P. theae strain CYF27 by combining PacBio long-read and Illumina short-read sequencing technologies. We identified a total of 15,626 gene models, of which 1,038 genes encode putative secreted proteins. The high-quality genome assembly and annotation resource reported here will be useful for the study of fungal infection mechanisms and pathogen-host interaction.

Automated summary

This study successfully generated a high-quality genome assembly of the pathogenic fungus Pseudopestalotiopsis theae strain CYF27 using PacBio long-read and Illumina short-read sequencing technologies, identifying a large number of gene models and putative secreted proteins. This resource will be valuable for studying fungal infection mechanisms and pathogen-host interaction.