Home • Escovopsis weberi CC031208-10
Photo of Escovopsis weberi CC031208-10
Escovopsis weberi strain CC031208-10 isolated from a fungal garden of the leaf-cutting ant Atta cephalotes was cultivated for 5 days on heat-pretreated fungal biomass, 25°C, darkness. Image was made using stereomicroscope. Scale = 1 mm. Image Credit: Komal Chenthamara, Irina S. Druzhinina

Escovopsis weberi (Hypocreales, Ascomycota), is a specialized parasite of Leucoagaricus spp. – the fungal crops of leaf-cutting ants (Attini). It has a reduced genome in terms of both size and gene content relative to closely related hypocrealean fungi such as Trichoderma or Hypomyces (de Man et al., 2016). Although primary metabolism genes have been retained, the E. weberi genome is depleted in carbohydrate active enzymes, which is consistent with reliance on a host with these functions. E. weberi has also lost genes considered necessary for sexual reproduction. Contrasting these losses, the genome encodes unique secondary metabolite biosynthesis clusters, some of which include genes that exhibit up-regulated expression during host attack. Thus, the specialized nature of the interaction between Escovopsis and ant agriculture is reflected in the parasite’s genome.

The genome sequence and gene models of Escovopsis weberi CC031208-10 were not determined by the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), but were downloaded from NCBI on Jan 29, 2020 and annotation provided by the authors. In order to ensure this genome is comparable to those sequenced by the JGI, we applied filters to remove if present: 1) transposable elements, 2) pseudogenes, 3) alternative transcripts and overlapping models, 4) alleles on secondary scaffolds, and 5) unsupported short models. This resulted in the removal of 116 models from E. weberi and the generation of the FilteredModels1 gene track. All published models are available in the ExternalModels track. JGI tools were used to automatically annotate predicted proteins. Please note that this copy of the genome is not maintained by NCBI and is therefore not automatically updated.

Genome Reference(s)