Fig. 1

Field samples of naturally occurring maize ear rot and PCR amplification of pathogenic fungal DNA A: collected samples of naturally occurring maize ear rot disease from twenty-six fields in nine cities (counties) including Beijing, Hainan, Henan, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, and Gansu; B: electrophoretic gel diagram of twenty-six diseased spike samples after DNA extraction and PCR amplification with universal primers."

Table 1

Identification of pathogenic fungi from maize ear rot samples collected from twenty-six regions"

Fig. 2

Colony morphology and evolutionary tree of T. asperellum strain Tr.10 A-F: growth of T. asperellum on PDA medium for 1-6 days; G-H: conidiophores and hyphae of T. asperellum under a 400× microscope, scale bar = 100 μm; I: evolutionary relationship diagram between the T. asperellum strain Tr.10 and other fungal species."

Fig. 3

Genomic map of T. asperellum Tr.10 From outer to inner circles, the rings represent: (1) genome position coordinates; (2) GC content; (3) GC skew; (4) coding gene density; (5) rRNA gene density; (6) snRNA and tRNA gene density; and (7) chromosome duplications. GC content: Calculated using a sliding window of genome/1000 bp with the same step size. Inward blue regions indicate areas with GC content lower than the genome-wide average, while outward purple regions indicate higher-than-average GC content. The higher the peak, the greater the deviation from the average. GC skew: also calculated with a window size of genome/1000 bp and step size of genome/1000 bp, using the formula (G-C)/(G+C). Inward-facing green regions represent areas where G content is lower than C content, while outward-facing pink regions indicate the opposite. Gene density: calculated using the same sliding window approach. Coding genes, rRNA, snRNA, and tRNA densities are shown. Darker colors represent higher gene densities within the window. Chromosome duplication: indicates regions of chromosomal duplications identified in the genome."

Fig. 4

ANI analysis of the genomes of T. asperellum, T. harzianum, and T. viride ANI (average nucleotide identity) reflects the distance between two sequences. In the figure, different colors represent the high and low ANI values; the relationship between ANI value and color is shown in the legend on the right, where darker colors indicate larger ANI values between samples."

Table S1

Inter-sample ANI value matrix table (%)"

Fig. 5

Comparative genomic analysis of Tr.10, T. asperellum and T. harzianum A: synteny analysis of Tr.10 with the genomes of T. asperellum; B: synteny analysis of Tr.10 with the genomes of T. harzianum."

Fig. 6

Fluorescence microscopy observation of maize kernels infected by T. asperellum and sample image of maize inbred lines infected by field inoculation of T. asperellum A and B: fluorescence microscopy images of maize kernel pathological sections stained with WGA488, where green fluorescence indicates fungal hyphae invading the maize kernels. C, E, G: maize samples (PHN47, Luyuan 92, Zhe 376) exhibiting highly resistant phenotypes after inoculation with the T. asperellum strain Tr.10. D, F, H: maize samples (Dan 340, Zheng 58, PHT77) showing highly susceptible phenotypes under the same T. asperellum Tr.10 inoculation."

Table S2

Identification table of 419 maize inbred lines for resistance to T. asperellum-induced ear rot"