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Support for Bacterial Taxonomy: LPSN asks for your support

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Dear colleagues.

We have received the following request for support. There are two letters explaining the situation. One from Sylvia Valdezate from ISCIII and another from Markus Göker from DSMZ

first letter

From the Leibniz Institute/German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures (DSMZ), which currently manages the LPSN – List of Prokaryotic names with Standing in Nomenclature Institute https://lpsn.dsmz.de/ They ask us for our support of their request.

I include in the original email from one of its managers Dr. Markus Göker to support the proposal of a more informative code and a standardized and stable bacterial nomenclature.

I describe the situation:

The future of an internationally standardized prokaryotic nomenclature – and of LPSN – depends on the future of the International Code of Prokaryotic Nomenclature (ICNP), which LPSN implements.

The relevant commission (ICSP) strongly opposed an amendment to the ICNP that would have allowed Genome sequences will be used as nomenclatural types for species with a validly published name.

This deviation from the requirement depositing type strains in culture collections was considered to undermine scientific reproducibility and the future availability of strains for, for example, medical practice (e.g. pathogen identification with MALDI-TOF or phenotypic testing) and research (e.g. on antibiotic resistance).

Despite massive criticism, SeqCode was published in 2022, based on the rejected idea.

The proposal “The best of both worlds” by Arahal et al. (2024) offers a fair and balanced solution that maintains the valid publication standard while comprehensively regulating Candidatus names (formal taxonomic proposals), thus providing incentives and recognition for work with cultured and uncultured bacteria.

The ICSP vote begins in a week, so the deadline to support the petition in favor of depositing strains for this purpose It will be until September 2.

Thank you for your collaboration

Best regards

Dra. Sylvia Valdezate svaldezate@isciii.es

Reference and Research Laboratory in Taxonomy. Bacteriology

National Center of Microbiology. Carlos III Health Institute

 

Second Letter

Dear LPSN users,

This is our second newsletter in 2024, and again a long time has passed since the last one. Today we are asking for your help. We do not normally do this, but there is one particularly important and urgent matter on which we would be grateful for your help.

HELP ENSURING THE FUTURE OF LPSN

If you haven’t done already, please sign and share this petition for a safe future of prokaryotic nomenclature and LPSN:

https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/support-the-best-of-both-worlds

The future of an internationally standardized prokaryotic nomenclature – and of LPSN – depends on the future of the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes (ICNP), which LPSN implements. In the spring of 2000, the relevant commission (ICSP) strongly opposed an amendment to the ICNP that would have allowed genome sequences to be used as nomenclatural types for species with a validly published name. This departure from the requirement to deposit type strains in culture collections was seen as undermining scientific reproducibility and the future availability of strains for, e.g., medical practice (e.g.

identification of pathogens with MALDI-TOF or phenotypic tests) and research (e.g. on antibiotic resistance). Despite massive criticism, the SeqCode was published in 2022, based on the rejected idea and contradicting the ICNP. The “Best of Both Worlds” proposal by Arahal et al. (2024) offers a fair and balanced solution that maintains the standard of valid publication while comprehensively regulating Candidatus names, thus providing incentives and recognition for work with both uncultured and cultured bacteria. Please support this proposal for a more informative code and a standardized and stable bacterial nomenclature at https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/support-the-best-of-both-worlds

JOIN THE AD HOC COMMITTEE ON MITIGATING CHANGES IN PROKARYOTIC NOMENCLATURE

Many medical, veterinary and biotechnology microbiologists are concerned about changes in prokaryotic names in databases, journal articles and other sources. The Ad Hoc Committee on Mitigating Changes in Prokaryotic Nomenclature (CoMiCProN) has therefore been formed and is looking for members. CoMiCProN is not looking for taxonomists, but for practitioners affected by bacterial name changes. The main activities of CoMiCProN are to compile a list of recommended names for medically important bacteria and to liaise with “multipliers”, mainly providers of databases of prokaryotic names. As CoMiCProN and LPSN work closely together, and as many users of LPSN are practitioners affected by bacterial name changes, we wanted to inform you about the possibility to participate through this channel. The minutes of the committee meetings are available at https://zenodo.org/records/13241701 .

Kind regards

Markus Goker

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Request registration in the Bacterial Taxonomy Support course: LPSN asks for your support