Synopsis on the taxonomy of the genus Xanthomonas

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