Revealing the genome of the microsporidian Vairimorpha bombi, a potential driver of bumble bee declines in North America.

ABSTRACT: Pollinators are vital for food security and the maintenance of terrestrial ecosystems. Bumblebees are important pollinators across northern temperate, arctic, and alpine ecosystems, yet are in decline across the globe. Vairimorpha bombi is a parasite belonging to the fungal class Microsporidia that has been implicated in the rapid decline of bumblebees in North America, where it may be an emerging infectious disease. To investigate the evolutionary basis of pathogenicity of V. bombi, we sequenced and assembled its genome using Oxford Nanopore and Illumina technologies and performed phylogenetic and genomic evolutionary analyses. The genome assembly for V. bombi is 4.73 Mb, from which we predicted 1,870 protein-coding genes and 179 tRNA genes. The genome assembly has low repetitive content

SUBMITTER: Webster VL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10989860 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature