4.8 Article

Herbarium specimen sequencing allows precise dating of Xanthomonas citri pv. citri diversification history

Journal

NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 14, Issue 1, Pages -

Publisher

NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39950-z

Keywords

-

Ask authors/readers for more resources

Herbarium collections provide valuable DNA resources for studying the evolutionary history of plant pathogens. This study reconstructs historical genomes of the bacterial crop pathogen Xanthomonas citri pv. citri (Xci) from Citrus herbarium specimens and compares them with modern genomes to understand its origin and diversification.
Herbarium collections are an important source of dated, identified and preserved DNA, whose use in comparative genomics and phylogeography can shed light on the emergence and evolutionary history of plant pathogens. Here, we reconstruct 13 historical genomes of the bacterial crop pathogen Xanthomonas citri pv. citri (Xci) from infected Citrus herbarium specimens. Following authentication based on ancient DNA damage patterns, we compare them with a large set of modern genomes to estimate their phylogenetic relationships, pathogenicity-associated gene content and several evolutionary parameters. Our results indicate that Xci originated in Southern Asia similar to 11,500 years ago (perhaps in relation to Neolithic climate change and the development of agriculture) and diversified during the beginning of the 13th century, after Citrus diversification and before spreading to the rest of the world (probably via human-driven expansion of citriculture through early East-West trade and colonization).

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.8
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available