Gene expression of sorghum-specific Exserohilum turcicum strain

Exserohilum turcicum is a fungal pathogen that causes northern corn leaf blight and sorghum leaf blight. However, strains are host-specific, meaning a strain typically only causes disease on either maize or sorghum. This pathosystem provides a unique opportunity to identify the mechanisms underlying host specificity through genomic and transcriptomic studies. To characterize host specificity, we (i) constructed de novo annotated assemblies of one sorghum- (15St008) and one maize-specific (Et52B) E. turcicum strain, ii) identified and characterized structural changes between the two genomes, and (iii) compared differential gene expression. This GEO project contains the gene expression of the sorghum-specific strain (15St008) during in planta infection of sorghum and in axenic cultures. Overall design: RNA-seq profiling of strain 15St008 during in planta infection and in axenic cultures. In planta samples were collected 10 days after inoculations and mycelium from axenic liquid cultures were collected after 5 days of growth.