Ustilago maydis is the causal agent of the corn smut crop disease. This basidiomycete can infect any part of the plant but usually it reaches the ovaries which causes the kernels to grow into large greyish tumors. The infected kernels are known as "huitlacoche" in Mexico and are used in the preparation of meals. This species is one of the most well studied plant pathogens and an important model organism for studying plant-pathogen interactions. The Ustilago maydis genome was released in June 2003 consisting of a 10X whole-genome shotgun assembly with a size of 19.68 Mb and encodes about 6500 protein-coding genes.

Browse this genome in the Ensembl Genomes website.