Recently, the sequencing of a Xam genome (Colombian strain CIO151) was completed at the Universidad de los Andes (Bogota, Colombia) and the annotation is in progress through the French Xanthomonas consortium Access to
this and subsequent Xam genomes should open up new applications for the comparative and functional genomics of Xam, and will accelerate the development of new molecular typing techniques useful for epidemiological and
phylogenetic studies of Xam, as well as diagnostic primers. Much remains to be carried out to improve our ability to combat this economically important plant disease.