diaporthe helianthi munt .- cvet , anamorph phomopsis helianthi , is one of the causal agent of stem canker of sunflower ( helianthus annuus ) . the fungus belongs to division ascomycota , subdivision pezizomycotina , class sordariomycetes , order diaporthales , family diaporthaceae . disease develops on leaves by causing brown necrotic lesions at the edge of the leaf blade and then spreads through the veins to the petiole . the leaf dries and remains attached to the stem . from the junction of the leaf the pathogen gradually infects the stem causing diffuse necrosis . the main loss is the shriveling of capitula and lodging of stem , which breaks at different levels . this isolate belongs to a group of highly virulent isolates characterized by the presence of a gene fragment having homologies with aspergillus terreus lovastatin nonaketide polyketide synthase gene ( lovb ) . the genome of d. helianthi strain 7/96 was sequenced using illumina mate - paired sequencing technology by bgi hong kong co ( bgi - hongkong co. , limited , 16 dai fu street , tai po iindustrial estate , tai po , new territories , hong kong ) . mate - paired reads of 90  bp ( 1.80 gbp ; average coverage 38.80   ) were assembled using velvet v 1.2.10 . the genome of d. helianthi consists of 13,383 sequence scaffolds with a total assembly length 46.50 mbp ( n50  =  6347 and n90  =  1502 ) , 51.10% gc - content , and a maximum scaffold size of 54,299  bp . the completeness of the assembly was assessed using busco v12 , which estimated the genome sequence to be 98.26% complete . analysis with signalp 4.1   revealed that 1433 predicted proteins ( 9.92% of the proteome ) contain a secretion signal peptide . among those 45 are species - specific as they do not have any sequence similarity to proteins in public databases , based on blast searches ( e - value threshold of 1e-5 ) . such features are characteristic of fungal effectors , which are proteins that have key roles in restricting the host defense . a first comparative analysis within diaporthales   and model organisms with publically available genomes [ fusarium 
 , neurospora 
 , colletotrichum 
 , magnaporthe 
 ] evidenced that d. helianthi 7/96 genome contains a remarkable number ( at least 40 ) of putative polyketide synthases ( pkss ) . analysis of pks gene family in strain 7/96 could be an intriguing starting point to unravel d. helianthi sunflower interactions . this whole - genome shotgun project has been deposited in genbank under the accession n : mavt00000000 ( bioproject prjna327798 ) . this whole - genome shotgun project has been deposited in genbank under the accession n : mavt00000000 ( bioproject prjna327798 ) . this work was supported by a dedicated grant from the italian ministry of economy and finance to the national research council for the project innovazione e sviluppo del mezzogiorno - conoscenze integrate per sostenibilit ed innovazione del made in italy agroalimentare - legge n. 191/2009 .
diaporthe helianthi is a fungus pathogenic to sunflower 
 . virulent strains of this fungus cause stem canker with important yield losses and reduction of oil content . here 
 we present the first draft whole - genome sequence of the highly virulent isolate d. helianthi strain 7/96 , thus providing a useful platform for future research on stem canker of sunflower and fungal genomics . 
 the genome sequence of the d. helianthi isolate 7/96 was deposited at ddbj / ena / genbank under the accession number mavt00000000 ( bioproject prjna327798 ) .