Abstract
This response summarizes the highly disordered state of the Mollicutes taxonomy that existed until recently, where most Mollicutes taxa lacked proper circumscriptions and their names were not in accordance with the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes and illegitimate. We also summarize the comprehensive phylogenomic and comparative genomic studies forming the basis for the proposed changes in the classification of Mollicultes species. Our responses to the concerns raised by Balish et al., show that the proposed taxonomic changes do not violate any essential point of the Code. Instead the proposed name changes rectify numerous taxonomic anomalies that have long plagued the classification of Mollicutes species, leading to a better understanding of their evolutionary relationships and bringing their nomenclature in conformity with the Code.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 003869 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1431-1438 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Work supported by Research Grant number 249924 from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada awarded to R. S. G.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors.
Keywords
- Illegitimacy of the names Entomoplasmataceae and Entomoplasmatales
- Order Mycoplasmoidales and the families Metamycoplasmataceae and Mycoplasmoidaceae
- Polyphyly of the genus Mycoplasma and the family/order Mycoplasmataceae/Mycoplasmatales
- Priority of the genus name Eperythrozoon over Mycoplasma
- Revised classification of species from the orders Mycoplasmatales and Entomoplasmatales