Leafhopper Comparative Genomics - Identifying Similarities and Differences across Leafhopper Vectors ofXylella fastidiosa

Abstract

Abstract. Insects in the order Hemiptera are considered the second most important group of plant pathogen vectors, after aphids as agriculture crop pests. Genomic approaches are providing new information on the genetic basis of biology, behavior, and refinement of their phylogenetic classification. Three leafhopper species, important as vectors of plant pathogenic bacteria referred to as Xylella fastidiosa (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae), were examined by comparison of the available expressed sequence tags, ∼43,400 ESTs from three leafhopper species (Hunter datasets, NCBI). These species are vectors of the plant-pathogenic bacterium, Xylella fastidiosa (Wells et al.) the causal agent of Pierce's disease of grapevine. A tentative look at the gene expression across these three leafhopper species, the glassy-winged sharpshooter, Homalodisca vitripennis (Germar), blue-green sharpshooter, Graphocephala atropunctata (Signoret), and black-winged sharpshooter, Oncometopia nigricans (Walker), were analyzed. After compar...