The Genome Taxonomy Database (GTDB) is an online database that maintains information on a proposed nomenclature of

prokaryotes A prokaryote () is a single-celled organism that lacks a nucleus and other membrane-bound organelles. The word ''prokaryote'' comes from the Greek πρό (, 'before') and κάρυον (, 'nut' or 'kernel').Campbell, N. "Biology:Concepts & Connec ...

, following a phylogenomic approach based on a set of conserved single-copy proteins. In addition to breaking up

paraphyletic In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...

groups, this method also reassigns taxonomic ranks algorithmically, creating new names in both cases. Information for

archaea Archaea ( ; singular archaeon ) is a domain of single-celled organisms. These microorganisms lack cell nuclei and are therefore prokaryotes. Archaea were initially classified as bacteria, receiving the name archaebacteria (in the Archaebac ...

was added in 2020, along with a species classification based on average nucleotide identity. Each update incorporates new genomes as well as human adjustments to the taxonomy. An

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

tool called GTDB-Tk is available to classify draft genomes into the GTDB hierarchy. The GTDB system, via GTDB-Tk, has been used to catalogue not-yet-named bacteria in the human gut microbiome and other metagenomic sources. The GTDB is incorporated into the '' Bergey's Manual of Systematics of Archaea and Bacteria'' in 2019 as its phylogenomic resource.

References

{{reflist Genome databases

See also

References