Complete Genome Sequence Data of Two Xylella fastidiosa subsp. multiplex Strains (ST26) Isolated from Infected Almond and Cherry in Southern Italy

In the framework of the monitoring campaign annually carried out in the Apulia region (southern Italy) to tackle the epidemic of Xylella fastidiosa subsp. pauca decimating olive trees, an outbreak of X. fastidiosa subsp. multiplex was discovered in 2024, with almond trees being the main host plant. Multilocus sequence typing analysis revealed that the isolates were associated with sequence type (ST) 26. Although subspecies multiplex is the most predominant in Europe, this was the first finding of this ST, whose occurrence is also very limited on the American continent. Here, we report the high-quality, complete annotated genomes of two ST26 strains recovered from infected cherry (BA_CH92_4) and almond (BA_AL92_2) trees, contributing to extending the genomic sequence dataset to infer phylogenetic relationships within the subspecies multiplex. [Formula: see text] Copyright © 2026 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license .