Nanopore PCR-cDNA sequencing of Aspergillus flavus AF36 (NRRL 18543)

Toxic molds in the Aspergillus genus produce cancer-causing toxins (aflatoxins) whichcontaminate crops. Aspergillus flavus isolate AF36 (NRRL 18543) does not produce aflatoxin andis able to outcompete aflatoxin-producing fungi in crops. This widely-applied aflatoxinbiocontrol isolate was first found in cottonseed from Yuma, Arizona. AF36 became the firstaflatoxin biocontrol fungus. A high-quality AF36 genome assembly was previously reported, butgene annotations predicting the protein products of that AF36 genome have not beenpublished. To fill this gap, we generated high quality gene predictions for the AF36 genome byusing long read sequencing to analyze the messenger RNA of transcribed genes. Since genetranscription is a plastic process that can be different between chemical environments andthroughout development, we sampled AF36 tissue from high and low aflatoxin environments attwo time points, resulting in four tissue samples. Our pipeline predicted 15,382 transcripts and12,894 protein-encoding genes, suggesting ~20% alternative splicing on average. These highquality gene predictions will be useful for future work on the molecular biology of an importantaflatoxin biocontrol isolate.