Whole-genome sequence of the brown rot fungal pathogen Monilinia fructigena Mfrg269 strain isolated in Italy

Brown rot are worldwide fungal diseases caused by Monilinia spp. (phylum Ascomycota) in pome- and stone-fruit trees of the Rosaceae family causing severe yield losses during both field production and postharvest processing. Among these, Monilinia fructigena causes severe losses, especially on in pome fruit culture. The aim of this study was to provide a high-quality of the M. fructigena genome assembly and protein-coding genes annotation. We report here the de novo genome sequence of the strain Mfrg269, collected from plum in South Italy. A hybrid assembly approach by utilizing DBG2OLC pipeline was used which utilizes both 3rd generation of sequencing long reads and next generation sequencing short reads. The whole genome was assembled into 131 scaffolds, having a total size of 43.125 Mb and encoding 9,970 unique protein-coding genes. The new generated reference genome is predictable to significantly contribute to basic research about the biology of Monilinia spp. in plant-pathogen interaction.