Amplified fragment length polymorphisms reveal genetic differentiation among strains of Xanthomonas albilineans

Xanthomonas albilineans, the causative agent of leaf scald disease (LSD), colonizes the vascular system of sugarcane (Saccharum spp. hybrids). In this study X. albilineans strains from 28 countries were differentiated by using two methods of amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). In the manual procedure, AFLP reactions were performed on 57 X. albilineans strains and after selective amplification using radiolabelled primers, the resulting products were separated using polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The autoradiographs were analyzed using GelCompar version 4.1 software (Applied Maths) to construct dendograms from similarity matrices. Fluorescent AFLP (FAFLP) was also employed on 52 X. albilineans strains using three fluorescently labelled primer combinations (automated AFLP). The FAFLP data was converted to a binary format using the Genemapper Software 3.7 (Applied Biosystems). Thereafter, dendograms were generated using the NTSYSpc. Software (USA). Distinct AFLP profiles were produced for the majority of the strains and were found to be useful in differentiating X. albilineans strains from various geographical locations. Fingerprints unique to each strain were reproducibly obtained and may be used to create a database for use in the identification of the various X. albilineans strains. It can be also concluded from the results obtained that the FAFLP has considerable technical advantages compared with the manual AFLP and also that the FAFLP is more sensitive than AFLP using radiolabelled primers in differentiating X. albilineans.