Post by Juliana Benevenuto

​I am a PhD student in Brazil at the University of São Paulo (USP/ESALQ) funded by a scholarship from FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation). I am developing a part of my research project in collaboration with the “Pathogen Genomics” group led by Daniel Croll. My project aims to understand the evolution of host specialization in smut fungi using comparative genomics approaches. Despite being phylogenetically close, smut species infect different Poaceae hosts, differ in their mode of plant colonization and show different symptoms development. Comparative genomics of species isolated from maize, barley, sugarcane, sorghum, oat and wheat will provide insights into the core set of genes that are responsible for host specificity and will improve our understanding of virulence factors in these important pathosystems. Single-copy orthologous gene sets identified by comparative genomics will also help to build more accurate phylogenies and improve estimates of divergence times among the species.