A short read genome assembly resource for Leveillula taurica causing powdery mildew of pepper (Capsicum annuum).

Powdery mildew of pepper (Capsicum annuum) is an economically important disease wherever this crop is grown. It is caused by Leveillula taurica, an obligate biotrophic ascomycete with partly endophytic mycelium, and haustoria, i.e. feeding structures produced in the mesophyll cells of the infected host plant tissues. The molecular background of its pathogenesis is largely unknown because as of yet genomic resources only exist for epiphytic powdery mildews with haustoria produced exclusively in the epidermal cells of their plant hosts. Here, we present the first reference genome assembly for an isolate of L. taurica infecting pepper that was collected in Hungary. The short read-based assembly consists of 23,599 contigs with a total length of 187.2 Mbp; the scaffold N50 is 13,899 kbp and N90 is 3,522 kbp, the average GC content is 39.2%. We detected at least 92,881 transposable elements covering 55.5 Mbp (30.4%). Our reference genome assembly of L. taurica is the first resource to study the molecular pathogenesis and evolution of a powdery mildew fungus with partly endophytic mycelium, and, thus, characterized by an infection process that is likely to be very different from what is known for epiphytic powdery mildews.