Genome characterization and identification of leucine-rich repeat receptor (LRR) genes for pathogen resistance in wild banana Musa acuminata subsp. halabanensis

¹ Department of Biochemistry, IPB University, Indonesia
² Research Center for Applied Botany, National Research and Innovation Agency, Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: imart@apps.ipb.ac.id

Abstract

Bananas are one of the most widely consumed fruits in the world. However, pathogenic diseases cause significant losses in cultivation. Leucine-rich repeat (LRR), encoded by resistance genes, is a protein domain that plays a role in the innate immune system against pathogens. Identifying resistance genes in wild bananas is expected to aid in cultivating disease-resistant banana cultivars. Resistance gene studies have not yet been conducted on the wild banana Musa acuminata subsp. halabanensis (Meijer) M.Hotta. This study aimed to characterize the genome and identify LRR resistance genes and their defense mechanisms in M. acuminata subsp. halabanensis. Quality control was performed on raw sequencing data from Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) and Illumina, followed by sequence hybrid assembly and annotation. The results showed that the hybrid assembly of ONT sequences and polishing with Illumina improved sequence quality, with a Q-score >30 reaching 90,12%. The assembly produced 9.793 contigs, with a total banana genome size of 437.161.969 bp. Functional annotation identified 16 genes belonging to the LRR group, including lrr1, bak1_1,4,5, bri1_1-4, ghr1_1,2,4, pirl1,3,4,6 and serk4. The LRR mechanism in pathogen defense was demonstrated by the activation of defense signalling pathways