Bacterial artificial chromosome-based physical map of Gibberella zeae (Fusarium graminearum)

Fusarium graminearum is the primary causal pathogen of Fusarium head blight of wheat and barley. To accelerate genomic analysis of F. graminearum, we developed a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC)-based physical map and integrated it with the genome sequence and genetic map. One BAC library, developed in the HindIII restriction enzyme site, consists of 4608 clones with an insert size of approximately 107 kb and covers about 13.5 genome equivalents. The other library, developed in the BamHI restriction enzyme site, consists of 3072 clones with an insert size of approximately 95 kb and covers about 8.0 genome equivalents. We fingerprinted 2688 clones from the HindIII library and 1536 clones from the BamHI library and developed a physical map of F. graminearum consisting of 26 contigs covering 39.2 Mb. Comparison of our map with the F. graminearum genome sequence showed that the size of our physical map is equivalent to the 36.1 Mb of the genome sequence. We used 31 sequence-based genetic markers, randomly spaced throughout the genome, to integrate the physical map with the genetic map. We also end-sequenced 17 BamHI BAC clones and identified 4 clones that spanned gaps in the genome sequence. Our new integrated map is highly reliable and useful for a variety of genomics studies.