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Synopsis on the Taxonomy of the Genus Xanthomonas

First author: Applied Maths, Derbystraat 331, 9051 Gent, Belgium, and Laboratorium voor Microbiologie, Universiteit Gent, Ledeganck-straat 35, B-9000 Gent, Belgium; second author: The Netherlands Culture Collection of Bacteria (NCCB), Utrecht University, PO Box 80056, 3508 TB Utrecht, the Netherlands; and third author: Laboratorium voor Microbiologie and BCCM/LMG Bacteria Collection, Universiteit Gent, Ledeganckstraat 35, B-9000 Gent, Belgium

The genus Xanthomonas exhibits a high phytopathogenic diversity in contrast to a phenotypic uniformity, which has hampered the genesis of a stable classification for a long time. In past decades, a large number of Xanthomonas strains have been characterized by a variety of phenotypic and genotypic methods in a multitude of studies. Extensive DNA hybridization studies and repetitive sequence-based polymerase chain reaction and amplified fragment length polymorphism genomic fingerprinting have clearly revealed the genomic diversity and relationships within the genus. A review of the current classification of the genus Xanthomonas based on the synopsis of these studies is given here.

Additional keywords: BOX-PCR, DNA homology, ERIC-PCR, pathovar, REP-PCR.