Mollicutes Taxonomy

What?

This website is dedicated to providing curated information of mollicutes taxonomy.
The class Mollicutes includes minute wall-less bacteria with small genomes (usually 0.5–1.5 Mb) and low G+C DNA content (from 23–40 mol%).
“Mollicutes” versus “mycoplasma”
- Both terms are used interchangeably in practice in conversation and writing. However, scientifically, “mollicutes” covers more than “mycoplasma”. To be accurate, Mycoplasma is a genus within the class Mollicutes, which is within the phylum Mycoplasmatota.

The class Mollicutes includes many pathogenic bacteria that are important to public health, veterinary medicine, aquaculture, and agriculture. Some of the recent taxonomic revisions proposed have created confusion among stakeholders.
This site was created to clarify the nomenclature of Mollicutes and prevent further confusion among stakeholders in response to multiple requests for clarification received in recent years.
The Subcommittee is committed to meeting the needs of the International Mollicutes community and encourage the adoption of the names listed on this website. The Subcommittee have written to LPSN and NCBI to request the names adopted by the community are used.

This website is maintained by the Subcommittee on the Taxonomy of Mollicutes, International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes (ICSP)
Members of the Subcommittee
- Gail Gasparich [Chair]; USA
- Meghan May [Secretary]; USA
- Mitchell Balish; USA
- Assunta Bertaccini; Italy
- Alain Blanchard; France
- Joachim Frey; Switzerland
- Victoria Chalker; UK
- Ludwig Hölzle; Germany
- Peter Kuhnert; Switzerland
- Chih-Horng Kuo; Taiwan
- Lucia Manso-Silvan; France
- Ana Sofía Ramírez; Spain
- Joachim Spergser; Austria
- Owen B. Spiller; UK
- Emma L. Sweeney; Australia
- Dmitriy Volokhov; USA
- Wei Wei; USA
The organization and functions of this subcommittees is according to the on Article 6 of the ICSP Statutes. Particularly:
- 6(b).5.3. Make recommendations regarding classification of the organisms in the taxa under study. A Subcommittee on Taxonomy cannot legislate on classification but may contribute materially towards the general acceptance of a classification.
- 6(b).5.4. Make recommendations to the Judicial Commission regarding nomenclature for the organisms in the taxa under study, including recommendations for the conservation or rejection of names.
- 6(b).5.5. Offer advice on recognition of the nomenclatural types of various taxa.
- 6(b).5.7. Recommend minimal standards for the description of new taxa.
- 6(b).5.8. Maintain a list of validly published and other names that have been applied to the organisms in the taxa under study.