Xanthomonas translucens, the causal agent responsible for bacterial leaf streak disease (BLS) in cereal crops, is re-emerging as a highly destructive pathogen on a global scale. Despite historical reports of BLS causing yield losses, there is growing anecdotal evidence suggesting that newer isolates of X. translucens may have increased virulence. Our research demonstrates that two X. translucens isolates, collected from different locations in Colorado, exhibit a greater level of aggressiveness on wheat and barley varieties when compared to older isolates. We propose that genetic variations between recent and older strains contribute significantly to the observed differences in isolate aggressiveness. To investigate this hypothesis, we conducted phenotypic and genetic analyses on two X. translucens isolates collected in Colorado in 2018, designated as CO236 (from barley) and CO237 (from wheat). With whole-genomes obtained by sequencing using Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT), we have identified both similarities and distinctions between these recently collected isolates and previously characterized strains. The dataset provided herein contains the raw ONT MinION sequencing reads for isolates Xtt CO236 and Xtu CO237.

Raw reads were obtained from Oxford Nanopore MinION sequencing. gDNA of isolates Xtt CO236 and Xtu CO237 was extracted using Zymo Research Quick-DNA^TM Fungal/Bacterial Miniprep Kit according to the manufacturer's instructions. Approximately 300ng of gDNA from each strain was barcoded with ONT Rapid Barcoding Kit (SQK-RBK004). Barcoded libraries were prepared with the Rapid Sequencing Kit (SQK-RAD004). Base calling was done in real-time with Guppy's high-accurate algorithm from ONT.

Fastq reads obtained from basecalling were grouped by each barcode corresponding to isolates Xtt CO236 and Xtu CO237, after which they were concatenated and compressed. The dataset includes the concatenated and compressed reads of Xtt CO236 (CO236.multiple.fastq.gz) and Xtu CO237 (CO237.multiple.fastq.gz).