ONT-based draft genome assembly and annotation of Alternaria atra
Species of Alternaria (phylum Ascomycota, family Pleosporaceae) are known as serious plant pathogens, causing major losses on a wide range of crops. Alternaria atra (Preuss) Woudenb. & Crous (previously known as Ulocladium atrum) can grow as a saprophyte on many hosts and causes Ulocladium blight on potato. It has been reported that it can also be used as a biocontrol agent against a.o. Botrytis cinerea Here we present a scaffold-level reference genome assembly for A. atra. The assembly contains 43 scaffolds with a total length of 39.62 Mbp, with scaffold N50 of 3,893,166 bp , L50 of 4 and the longest 10 scaffolds containing 89.9% of the assembled data. RNA Seq-guided, gene prediction using BRAKER resulted in 12,173 protein-coding genes with their functional annotation. This first high-quality reference genome assembly and annotation for A. Atra can be used as a resource for studying evolution in the highly complicated Alternaria genus and might help understand the mechanisms defining its role as pathogen or biocontrol agent.