#26 · ML / AI methods

Pathogen metabolic modeling and high-contiguity fungal genome assembly

The dominant thread is genome-scale resource construction for phytopathogen-associated organisms. The Xylella fastidiosa preprint builds iXfcore, a pangenome-based genome-scale metabolic model validated in defined media, which reveals acetate-supported growth and polyamine secretion. The Fusarium oxysporum FO12 preprint provides a chromosome-level assembly of a biocontrol fungus from Nanopore and Hi-C data, totaling 57.60 Mb in 14 scaffolds with centromeres resolved. What is new is the pairing of high-contiguity genome structure with constraint-based metabolic reconstruction. A published Verticillium dahliae study extends the metabolic theme, showing that an NRPS-like secondary metabolite gene cluster supports adaptation to different nutrient environments. The published Mus81 study on RNA editing, DNA repair tradeoffs, heat tolerance and meiosis bears on genome integrity rather than on the phytopathogen work.