Grey, white mould genomes sequenced

An international consortium of researchers has completed the comparison and annotation of the genomes of two major plant pathogens, white mould ( Sclerotinia sclerotiorum) and grey mould ( Botrytis cinerea). Both species are closely related and are unusual in their broad range of hosts, which are more than 200 for B cinerea and more than 400 for S sclerotiorum. They have similar sized genomes (38-39 megabases) encoding 11,860–14,270 predicted genes, of which more than 8,600 are highly conserved between the two species. Around 1,500 genes appear to be clade-specific, with no known orthologues in other fungal species.