Fusarium
graminearum, the predominant causal agent of Fusarium head blight
(FHB) in cereal crops, impacts the North American wheat industry mainly through
the contamination of infected grains with mycotoxins. Understanding the
molecular mechanisms underlying adaptive traits in field populations can
accelerate the improvement of durably resistant cultivars and effective
fungicides. Previously, a Nested Association Mapping Population of F.
graminearum (FgNAM) was developed via sexual crosses using Nit-5 (a Nit
isolate derived from isolate PH-1) as a recurrent parent and eight other
isolates from North America representing phenotypic variation in some adaptive
traits, including aggressiveness toward wheat species, DON chemotypes (3ADON
vs. 15ADON), and sensitivity to triazole fungicides. This project aims to
identify genes associated with these adaptive traits among F. graminearum
populations in North America. A pan-genome reflecting diversity in the populations
occurring in North America was constructed using nanopore sequencing from the
nine isolates as funders for FgNAM. The pan-genome analyses provided additional
chromosome-scale reference genomes and annotation based on RNA-seq data
obtained from FgNAM founders. Several candidate effectors co-located with
hypervariable regions were detected in 3ADON isolate SK1797. Besides, two
candidate fungicide insensitivity genes, YC79 (a
transcription factor) and MFS1 (a
multi-drug transporter) were identified in Metconazole insensitivity isolate
106Eb1 based on fungicide sensitivity phenotyping. This study provides a
pan-genome based on the nine FgNAM founders’ genomes combined with
transcriptome analysis, which will facilitate the identification of novel genes
related to fungicide insensitivity, aggressiveness toward wheat and mycotoxin
production in F. graminearum.