Shotgun metagenomics dataset of Striga hermonthica-infested maize (Zea mays L.) rhizospheric soil microbiome

This dataset includes shotgun metagenomics sequencing of the rhizosphere microbiome of maize infested with Striga hermonthica from Mbuzini, South Africa, and Eruwa, Nigeria. The sequences were used for microbial taxonomic classification and functional categories in the infested maize rhizosphere. High throughput sequencing of the complete microbial community's DNA was performed using the Illumina NovaSeq 60 0 0 technology. The average base pair count of the sequences were 5,353,206 bp with G + C content of 67%. The raw sequence data used for analysis is available in NCBI under the BioProject accession numbers PRJNA888840 and PRJNA889583. The taxonomic analysis was performed using ogy (MG-RAST). Bacteria had the highest taxonomic representation (98.8%), followed by eukaryotes (0.56%), and archaea (0.45%). This metagenome dataset provide valuable information on microbial communities associated with Striga infested maize rhizosphere and their functionality. It can also be used for further studies on application of microbial re-sources for sustainable crop production in this region. (c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )

Automated summary

This dataset contains shotgun metagenomics sequencing of the rhizosphere microbiome of maize infested with Striga hermonthica from Mbuzini, South Africa, and Eruwa, Nigeria. The sequences were used for microbial taxonomic classification and functional categories in the infested maize rhizosphere. The dataset provides valuable information on microbial communities associated with Striga infested maize rhizosphere and their functionality.