Comparative genomics of Fusarium fujikuroi strains

Fusarium fujikuroi is the main agent of bakanae disease on rice. It causes the elongation of the internodes of the host, resulting in thin not productive plants that often break under the wind. Different F. fujikuroi strains can induce wildly different symptoms in the hosts, besides producing a very diverse array of secondary metabolites. We compared the genomes of various F. fujikuroi strains in order to identify key genes and polymorphisms central to the development of the symptoms and the production of secondary metabolites, in particular mycotoxins and pathogenicity factors.