Ustilaginoidea virens Genome sequencing. Ustilaginoidea virens

Ustilaginoidea virens is an ascomycetous fungus that causes rice false smut, an economically important and devastating disease worldwide. Here, we constructed the first complete chromosome-level assembly of U. virens. The high-quality U. virens assembly represents dramatical improvements including considerably longer contig N50 length, relatively higher proportion of repetitive elements and much more functionally annotated genes over the previous Illumina-based version. We also assembled complete mitochondrial genomes of several U. virens strains. The comparisons among different U. virens strains revealed the widespread lineage-specific regions, providing new insights about genomic and mitochondrial evolution.