A Genomic Resource for the Strawberry Powdery Mildew Pathogen Podosphaera aphanis

Abstract

Powdery mildew is one of the most economically destructive diseases in protected strawberry production. Here we present the first genome assembly for Podosphaera aphanis, the causal agent of powdery mildew on strawberry. This obligate-biotrophic fungal pathogen was sampled from a naturally occurring outbreak on Fragaria × ananassa ‘Malling Centenary’ plants grown under cover in the United Kingdom. Assembled reads resolved a 55.6 Mb genome, composed of 12,357 contigs whose annotation led to prediction of 17,239 genes encoding 17,328 proteins. The genome is highly-complete, with 97.5% of conserved single-copy Ascomycete genes shown to be present. This annotated P. aphanis genome provides a molecular resource for further investigation into host−pathogen interactions in the strawberry powdery mildew pathosystem.

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“…Podosphaera xanthii is a causal agent of powdery mildew on cucurbitaceous plants, and more than 28 physiological races have been identified ( Haonan et al., 2020 ; Wang et al., 2023 ). Pseudoidium neolycopersici (formerly known as Oidium neolycopersici ) and Podosphaera aphanis , the causal agents of powdery mildew in tomato and strawberry, respectively, are also of great importance worldwide ( Pathak et al., 2020 ; Heaven et al., 2023 ). Powdery mildew first appears as small patches of powdery white growth on leaf and stem surfaces.…”