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New names for Bacillus and Lactobacillus

In recent months, two papers have come out that have revolutionized the world of the two most important genera for industrial use:

  • Bacillus (Patel and Gupta (2020) Int. J. Syst. Evol. Microbiol. 2020;70:406–438)
  • Lactobacillus (Zheng et al (2020) Int. J. Syst. Evol. Microbiol. 2020;70:2782–2858)

In these two papers, in fact, these two genera have been reorganized and splitted in the light of the new knowledge developed in recent decades, especially from the genetic point of view.

This led to 6 new genera for Bacillus and 22 for Lactobacillus.

While this reclassification allows microbial biodiversity to be better described, it requires some extra care from those who work with microorganisms.

This taxonomical update requires to correctly identify the new names of the strains in use and correct them on technical, scientific, legal and commercial documentation, from labels and quality control documents up to the reanalysis of metagenomic data.

To help operators in this process, Microbion has developed a conversion table that you can request for free on this page.

If needed, Microbion is at your side to give you all the support you need to better manage the transition from old to new names.