Draft genome sequence and in-silico effector mining of Cercospora sesami, causing leaf spot of sesame

Cercospora sesami is an agriculturally important plant pathogen that causes leaf spot in sesame across the world. As the pathogen results in huge economic losses, therefore, study of genome organisation can help in identification of virulence genes which will certainly aid in development of disease management strategies as well as in building of improved resistant varieties. In this study, we have constructed a draft genome assembly of C. sesami isolate Cers 52-10 (MCC 9069) using native paired-end and mate-pair DNA sequencing on Illumina HiSeq 2500 platform. The draft genome assembly is 37.80 Mb in size with an N50 of 26,222 bp and an average GC content of 53.02%. We have identified and functionally annotated 80 putative effectors in-silico in this study. In addition to this, we have also carried out morphological, colony based and molecular characterisation of this pathogen. The C. sesami genome sequence is available at DDBJ/ENA/GenBank. This is a valuable resource to support future population genomics studies. This study will also reduce the knowledge gap by identification of loci associated with the virulence of the pathogen which certainly will help in identifying the genetic variants and diagnostic tools.