We have used amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) and DNA-DNA hybridization for genotypic classification of Xanthomonas pathovars associated with the plant family Anacardiaceae. AFLP and MLSA results showed congruent phylogenetic relationships of the pathovar mangiferaeindicae (responsible for mango bacterial canker) with strains of Xanthomonas axonopodis subgroup 9.5. This subgroup includes X. axonopodis pv. citri (synonym Xanthomonas citri). Similarly, the pathovar anacardii, which causes cashew bacterial spot in Brazil, was included in X. axonopodis subgroup 9.6 (synonym Xanthomonas fuscans). Based on the thermal stability of DNA reassociation, consistent with the AFLP and MLSA data, the two pathovars share a level of similarity consistent with their being members of the same species. The recent proposal to elevate X. axonopodis pv. citri to species level as X. citri is supported by our data. Therefore, the causal agents of mango bacterial canker and cashew bacterial spot should be classified as pathovars of X. citri, namely X. citri pv. mangiferaeindicae (pathotype strain CFBP 1716) and X. citri pv. anacardii (pathotype strain CFBP 2913), respectively. Xanthomonas fuscans should be considered to be a later heterotypic synonym of Xanthomonas citri.

INTRODUCTIONThe classification of some phytopathogenic bacterial species was initially based on host specialization, although this was evidently not sound taxonomically (Dowson, 1939;Stolp et al., 1965). Nevertheless, plant pathologists and phytosanitary policy regulators required names for plant-pathogenic bacteria that clearly reflected their pathogenic ability. This led to the development of the pathovar classification at an infrasubspecific level (Dye et al., 1980). Furthermore, strains with differential host ranges within a pathovar were sometimes described (e.g. xanthomonads pathogenic to citrus or cassava) and often referred to as pathotypes (Civerolo & Fan, 1982;Verdier et al., 1998).A total of four xanthomonads are pathogenic to plant species within the Rutaceae. Two pathogens that cause spot diseases of citrus (i.e. water-soaked spots turning into flat, necrotic lesions) have been described as two distinct Details of strains and primers, maximum-likelihood trees based on individual sequences and a neighbour-joining tree based on concatenated sequences are available as supplementary material with the online version of this paper.

The clearance of erythrocytes may be carried out by vascular cells in atherosclerotic conditions. • Phagocytosis by endothelial cells is more pronounced with aged and glycated erythrocytes.• Endothelial phagocytosis is enhanced with T2D erythrocytes.• Interactions between erythrocytes and endothelial cells occur in vivo, in atherothrombotic/diabetic conditions.