The Genome of f. sp. Provides Insight into the Evolution of Genomes and Effectors of Species.

f. sp. , the causal agent of cowpea fusarium wilt, is a serious threat to cowpea production in China. In this study, a sample of cowpea fusarium wilt was identified as f. sp. using the methods of morphological characters and molecular detection. We further reported the first genome assembly for f. sp. , with 53.7 Mb genome sequence comprising 14,694 genes. Comparative genomic analysis among five genomes showed that four accessory chromosomes in the five display similar characteristics, with low sequence similarity (55.35%, vs. overall average of 81.76%), low gene density (2.18 genes/10 kb vs. 3.02 genes/Mb) and highly transposable element density (TEs) (15.01/100 kb vs. 4.89/100 kb), indicating that variable accessory chromosomes are the main source of evolution. We identified a total of 100 f. sp. -specific effectors in the genome and found 13 specific effector genes located in large insertion or deletion regions, suggesting that insertion or deletion events can cause the emergence of species-specific effectors in . Our genome assembly of provides a valuable resource for the study of cowpea fusarium wilt, and the comparative genomic study of could contribute to the knowledge of genome and effector-associated pathogenicity evolution in study.