Judelson, H. S. and Ah Fong, A. M. V. 2006. Genomics of oomycetes. In: Encyclopedia of Plant and Crop Science (R. Goodman, ed.), Taylor and Francis.

Oomycetes are a diverse group of eukaryotic microbes that include saprophytes and pathogens of plants, animals, and microbes. Despite having fungus-like characteristics, oomycetes are not true fungi but instead belong to the Kingdom Stramenopila. The advent of tools and resources for structural and functional genomics promises to revolutionize studies of these species. For example, sequence databases have been established for several oomycetes which provides insight into the composition and organization of their genomes, and tools have been developed for functional genomics and for profiling the expression of their transcriptomes. These will facilitate molecular studies of the biology, pathogenesis, and evolution of these important organisms.