Genome sequence data of Peronophythora litchii, an oomycete pathogen causing litchi downy blight

Peronophythora litchii is an oomycete pathogen that exclusively infects litchi, with infection stages affecting a broad range of tissues. In this study, we obtained a near chromosome-level genome assembly of P. litchii strain ZL2018 from China using Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) long-read sequencing and Illumina short-read sequencing. The genome assembly was 64.15 Mb in size and consisted of 81 contigs with an N50 of 1.43 Mb and a maximum length of 4.74 Mb.

Excluding 34.67% of repeat sequences, a total of 14,857 protein-coding genes were identified, among which 14,447 genes were annotated. We also predicted 306 candidate RXLR effectors in the assembly. The high-quality genome assembly and annotation resources reported in this study will provide new insight into the infection mechanisms of P. litchii.