22
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: not found

      The bacterial species definition in the genomic era.

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPMC
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          The bacterial species definition, despite its eminent practical significance for identification, diagnosis, quarantine and diversity surveys, remains a very difficult issue to advance. Genomics now offers novel insights into intra-species diversity and the potential for emergence of a more soundly based system. Although we share the excitement, we argue that it is premature for a universal change to the definition because current knowledge is based on too few phylogenetic groups and too few samples of natural populations. Our analysis of five important bacterial groups suggests, however, that more stringent standards for species may be justifiable when a solid understanding of gene content and ecological distinctiveness becomes available. Our analysis also reveals what is actually encompassed in a species according to the current standards, in terms of whole-genome sequence and gene-content diversity, and shows that this does not correspond to coherent clusters for the environmental Burkholderia and Shewanella genera examined. In contrast, the obligatory pathogens, which have a very restricted ecological niche, do exhibit clusters. Therefore, the idea of biologically meaningful clusters of diversity that applies to most eukaryotes may not be universally applicable in the microbial world, or if such clusters exist, they may be found at different levels of distinction.

          Related collections

          Author and article information

          Journal
          Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci
          Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
          The Royal Society
          0962-8436
          0962-8436
          Nov 29 2006
          : 361
          : 1475
          Affiliations
          [1 ] Center for Microbial Ecology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA. konstan1@mit.edu
          Article
          B1254084J2637T71
          10.1098/rstb.2006.1920
          1764935
          17062412
          18602e31-7645-41ec-a56c-49def063bc9d
          History

          Comments

          Comment on this article