ABSTRACT
Grapevine bacterial canker, which is caused by Xanthomonas campestris pv. viticola, is one of the most important grapevine diseases in the northeastern region of Brazil. This disease causes severe damage and represents a high potential risk to the development of Brazilian viticulture. In turn, pigmented isolates pathogenic to cashew plant, making cashew fruit unfit for sale, also have been detected in Northeastern Brazil. Given that the taxonomic position of these bacteria is unclear, the multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) technique, average nucleotide identity (ANI) values and tetranucleotide frequency correlation coefficients (TETRA) were used to analyze their phylogenetic relationship in relation to other Xanthomonas species. X. campestris pv. viticola was closely related to X. citri pv. mangiferaeindicae (repetitive-polymerase chain reaction [rep-PCR], MLSA, and ANI) and X. citri subsp. citri (MLSA and ANI). Pigmented isolates pathogenic to cashew plant were closely related to X. citri pv. anacardii (rep-PCR, MLSA, ANI, and TETRA). The results obtained in this study support the emendation of the description of X. citri pv. anacardii to include pigmented isolates of Xanthomonas pathogenic to cashew plant. In addition, the reclassification of X. campestris pv. viticola as X. citri pv. viticola comb. nov. is suggested.
