Population genomic analyses suggest recent dispersal events of the pathogen Cercospora zeina into East and Southern African maize cropping systems

A serious factor hampering global maize production is gray leaf spot disease. Cercospora zeina is one of the causative pathogens, but population genomics analysis of C. zeina is lacking. We conducted whole-genome Illumina sequencing of a representative set of 30 C. zeina isolates from Kenya and Uganda (East Africa) and Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa (Southern Africa). Selection of the diverse set was based on microsatellite data from a larger collection of the pathogen. Pangenome analysis of the C. zeina isolates was done by (1) de novo assembly of the reads with SPAdes, (2) annotation with BRAKER, and (3) protein clustering with OrthoFinder. A published long-read assembly of C. zeina (CMW25467) from Zambia was included and annotated using the same pipeline. This analysis revealed 790 non-shared accessory and 10,677 shared core orthogroups (genes) between the 31 isolates. Accessory gene content was largely shared between isolates from all countries, with a few genes unique to populations from Southern Africa (32) or East Africa (6). There was a significantly higher proportion of effector genes in the accessory secretome (44%) compared to the core secretome (24%). PCA, ADMIXTURE, and phylogenetic analysis using a neighbor-net network indicated a population structure with a geographical subdivision between the East African isolates and the Southern African isolates, although gene flow was also evident. The small pangenome and partial population differentiation indicated recent dispersal of C. zeina into Africa, possibly from 2 regional founder populations, followed by recurrent gene flow owing to widespread maize production across sub-Saharan Africa.