The genome sequence of Ustilago bromivora

Ustilago bromivora is a biotrophic pathogenic fungus belonging to the group of head smuts. It infects the model grass Brachypodium distachyon and causes visible symptoms in the late stages of the plant development were infected spikelets are converted to smut sori. The well-established model smut fungus Ustilago maydis has been previously shown to be a useful to study aspects of biotrophic pathogenic fungi in general. Nevertheless on the host plant side (Zea maize) there are several serious restrictions for two sided functional studies of the biotrophic interaction. The Ustilago bromivora host plant Brachypodium distachyon has in contrast to this all advantages for a fully accessible model system (diploid, easy to transform, selfing, small size, short lifecycle, sequenced genome etc.). Therefore the Ustilago bromivora genome will become a valuable resource to make two sided functional studies of factors shaping the biotrophic plant-fungal interaction possible.