Near complete assembly of Pyricularia penniseti infecting Cenchrus grass identified its eight core chromosomes

Abstract Fungi from the Pyricularia genus cause blast disease in many economically important crops and grasses, such as wheat, rice, and Cenchrus grass JUJUNCAO. Structure variation associated with the gain and loss of effectors contributes largely to the adaptive evolution of this fungus towards diverse host plants. A telomere-to-telomere genome assembly would facilitate the identification of genome-wide structural variations through comparative genomics. Here, we report a telomere-to-telomere, near-complete genome assembly of a Pyricularia penniseti isolate JC-1 infecting JUJUNCAO. The assembly consists of eight core chromosomes and two supernumerary chromosomes, named mini1 and mini2, spanning 42.1 Mb. We annotated 12,156 protein-coding genes and identified 4.54% of the genome as repetitive sequences. The two supernumerary chromosomes contained fewer genes and more repetitive sequences than the core chromosomes. Our genome and results provide valuable resources for the future study in genome evolution, structure variation and host adaptation of the Pyricularia fungus.