The Uncinocarpus reesii sequencing project is part of the Broad Institute Fungal Genome Initiative. The goal of this project was to release an annotated assembly with 4X genome sequence coverage for Uncinocarpus reesii strain UAMH 1704. John Taylor's lab at University of Berkley provided the genomic DNA for the sequencing project.
Unicinocarpus reesii is morphologically very similar to Coccidioides species and sequence analysis indicates that it is one of the closest known relative of Coccidioides. The sequence divergence of the 18S ribosomal gene between C. immitis and U. reesii is approximately 0.7%, reflecting approximately 20-30 million years evolutionary distance (Bowman, White et al. 1996).
Coccidioides species cause serious and sometimes fatal disease (coccidiomycosis) in otherwise healthy people. The U.S. government regulates both C. posadasii and C. immitis under the Select Agent Program as potential bioterrorist threats. For this reason, Coccidioides is an active target of molecular genetic and clinical investigation. The genome sequences of both C. posadasii and C. immitis are now available. However, unlike these Coccidioides species, U. reesii is nonpathogenic. Having the sequence from these three closely related fungi will allow a comparative approach to the study of pathogenesis in Coccidioides.
References
Bowman BH, White TJ and Taylor JW. 1996 Human Pathogenic Fungi and their close Naopathogenic relatives. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 6(1): 89-96
Data access and Citation
The genome assembly and annotation of Uncinocarpus reesii is available in Genbank.
For use of this data, please cite: Sharpton TJ et al., "Comparative genomic analyses of the human fungal pathogens Coccidioides and their relatives.", Genome Res, 2009 Aug 28;19(10):1722-31.