Toxic molds in the Aspergillus genus produce cancer-causing toxins (aflatoxins) which</p><p>contaminate crops. Aspergillus flavus isolate AF36 (NRRL 18543) does not produce aflatoxin and</p><p>is able to outcompete aflatoxin-producing fungi in crops. This widely-applied aflatoxin</p><p>biocontrol isolate was first found in cottonseed from Yuma, Arizona. AF36 became the first</p><p>aflatoxin biocontrol fungus. A high-quality AF36 genome assembly was previously reported, but</p><p>gene annotations predicting the protein products of that AF36 genome have not been</p><p>published. To fill this gap, we generated high quality gene predictions for the AF36 genome by</p><p>using long read sequencing to analyze the messenger RNA of transcribed genes. Since gene</p><p>transcription is a plastic process that can be different between chemical environments and</p><p>throughout development, we sampled AF36 tissue from high and low aflatoxin environments at</p><p>two time points, resulting in four tissue samples. Our pipeline predicted 15,382 transcripts and</p><p>12,894 protein-encoding genes, suggesting ~20% alternative splicing on average. These high</p><p>quality gene predictions will be useful for future work on the molecular biology of an important</p><p>aflatoxin biocontrol isolate.
