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A Widely Distributed Lineage of Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae in India May Have Come from Native Wild Rice

Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae causes bacterial leaf blight, a serious disease of rice. We have collected leaf blight-affected samples from wild rice (Oryza nivara) plants growing naturally at 22 locations in five revenue districts (Nalgonda, Ranga Reddy, Medak, Nizamabad, and Adilabad) in the Telangana Region of Andhra Pradesh, India. Pathotype analysis on a set of differential rice cultivars and DNA fingerprinting with two multilocus restriction fragment length polymorphism probes indicated that the X. oryzae pv. oryzae strains from the O. nivara plants belonged to a pathotype and lineage previously widely distributed among cultivated rice in India. This suggests that the lineage may be native to wild rice and may have been transferred subsequently to cultivated rice plants.