Abstract
The soybean cyst nematode (Heterodera glycines) is a sedentary plant
parasite that exceeds a billion dollars in yield losses annually. It has
spread across the soybean-producing world, emerging as the primary
pathogen of soybeans. This problem is exacerbated by H. glycines
populations overcoming the limited sources of natural resistance in
soybean and by the lack of effective and safe alternative treatments.
Although there are genetic determinants that render soybean plants
resistant to certain nematode genotypes, resistant soybean cultivars are
increasingly ineffective because their multi-year usage has selected for
virulent H. glycines populations. Successful H. glycines infection
relies on the comprehensive re-engineering of soybean root cells into a
syncytium, as well as the long-term suppression of host defenses to
ensure syncytial viability. At the forefront of these complex molecular
interactions are effectors, the proteins secreted by H. glycines into
host root tissues. The mechanisms that control genomic effector
acquisition, diversification, and selection are important insights
needed for the development of essential novel control strategies. As a
foundation to obtain this understanding, we developed a nine scaffold,
158Mb pseudomolecule assembly of the H. glycines genome using PacBio,
Chicago, and Hi-C sequencing. An annotation of 22,465 genes was
predicted using a Mikado pipeline informed by published short- and
long-read expression data. Here we present results from our assembly and
annotation of the H. glycines genome.