Pythium myriotylum isolate:SWQ7 Genome sequencing and assembly

Oomycetes, such as the broad host-range necrotrophic plant pathogen Pythium myriotylum, cause devastating crop losses. We have previously identified P. myriotylum as the major pathogen infecting ginger (Zingiber officinale) rhizomes in China with symptoms of Pythium soft rot (PSR) disease. Ginger is an important crop with global production estimated at approximately three million metric tonnes with about 20% of this production in China. The genome of a relatively highly virulent P. myriotylum strain isolated from an infected ginger rhizome was sequenced using third-generation sequencing technology and annotated. P. myriotylum is a broad host-range pathogen that can infect both monocot and dicot plant species. To our knowledge, this is the first assembly and annotation of the P. myriotylum genome. Our goals for sequencing and annotating the genome of P. myriotylum were to better understand the pathogenicity of P. myriotylum by comparative genomics and by the use of the assembly as a reference to map transcriptomic datasets.