Obligate endosymbiont of leafhopper insects, Homalodisca coagulata. Baumannia cicadellinicola str. Hc (Homalodisca coagulata)

Baumannia cicadellinicola str. Hc (Homalodisca coagulata). This newly discovered organism is an obligate endosymbiont of the leafhopper insect Homalodisca coagulata (Say), also known as the Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter, which feeds on the xylem of plants. The insect causes devastation to grape crops and may affect other grasses as it is a vector for the bacterial pathogen, Xylella fastidiosa, which can cause disease in grapevines. It is suspected that this genome will have undergone massive reduction, and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis suggests the genome size is only 671 kb. Presumably, the genes that have been retained will strongly reflect the nutritional co-dependence requirements of the bacterium and the host.