Minutes of the meetings of the Ad Hoc Committee on Mitigating Changes in Prokaryotic Nomenclature

CoMiCProN Meeting October 21st 2025 Minutes Minute 1. Call to order Markus Göker called the meeting to order at 17:15 CEST. Minute 2. Record of attendance Present were: Susan Butler-Wu, Henrik Christensen, Miriam Cordovana, Stefan Emler, Volker Fingerle, Markus Göker, Marko Kostovski, Gabriele Margos, Udo Reischl and Jose VázquezBoland. Apologies were received from Rafael Cantón, Karen Carroll, Valerie Collin, Garrett G. Gordy, Aharon Oren, Sheila Patrick, Audrey Schuetz and Joachim Spergser. Some members had to leave earlier. Minute 3. Minutes of 2025-09-02 meeting The September meeting minutes were reviewed and approved, with one minor change. Minute 4. Matters Arising / Action Points from 2025-09-02 meeting The action items from the September meeting were reviewed. Some could be marked as either completed or obsolete. Others need to be marked as ongoing. These ongoing items are listed below under “Matters Arising/Action Points” from this meeting. Minute 5. Votes on the new candidates for membership in the committee Regarding new candidates for membership, Sarah Copsey-Mawer, a senior biomedical scientist, had been suggested by S. Patrick in e-mail correspondence prior to the meeting. This proposal was supported by A. Schuetz. A CV and links to websites describing the candidate were provided. S. Copsey-Mawer's membership was approved with nine votes in favour, none against, and no abstentions. Minute 6. Report on inactive members and votes on their removal E.R.B. Moore, who was supposed to contact inactive members, was not present at the meeting. However, contact with the Bruker representatives on the committee had been restored in the meantime. See Minute 9. Minute 7a. Missing contact addresses of multipliers M. Göker reminded the attendees that contact addresses were still missing for some of the multipliers. In the meantime, S. Patrick and J. Vázquez-Boland had provided important contact addresses for the UK. M. Göker asked the committee members to provide more, if possible, as templates for letters to various multipliers had already been created. Minute 8. Brief reports on planned or submitted manuscripts M. Göker reported that the IJSEM paper presenting CoMiCProN and LoRN had been accepted by the journal, and that the typesetting had been completed. He added that a manuscript about TYGS and LPSN, which briefly mentions LoRN, had been accepted for the Nucleic Acids Research 1 database issue and that the typesetting had been completed. For those interested in browsing the LPSN taxonomic classification in a different way, an additional website was created. J. VázquezBoland and M. Göker briefly discussed how the term “synonym” is used in this system and on the main LPSN website. J. Vázquez-Boland noted that the paper proposing the Mycobacteriales subgenera had been published in the IJSEM. Only positive comments had been received so far, and the article appeared to have attracted relatively high attention in the IJSEM. G. Margos reported that no comments had yet been received on the article proposing Borreliella as a subgenus. M. Göker noted that the next item on the list would be a review-style article on the return of the subgenus. J. Vázquez-Boland confirmed that this was part of CoMiCProN’s strategy. M. Göker suggested submitting the article under “ICSP matters” to the IJSEM as well. This would mean that it would need to include the committee’s formal recommendations on the usage of the subgenus. G. Margos wondered whether Clinical Microbiology and Infection would be a suitable journal for the manuscript, given that the editor-in-chief had previously recommended that the committee publish its work therein. M. Göker replied that the subgenus article would target taxonomists, not practitioners. J. Vázquez-Boland volunteered to start drafting the committee’s subgenus manuscript for the IJSEM. G. Margos and V. Fingerle agreed. This was followed by a brief general discussion on a planned manuscript targeting practitioners, which was to be submitted to Clinical Microbiology and Infection or another medical journal. As with previous discussions on this topic, it was unclear who would take the lead. J. Vázquez-Boland noted that he was the editor-in-chief of a newly founded ASM journal, Animal Microbiology. He would be writing an editorial for the first issue, which would mention CoMiCProN and establish a naming convention for prokaryotes. Minute 9. Brief reports concerning the involvement of other multipliers M. Göker reiterated that V. Collin and he had met previously with a colleague from bioMérieux. While V. Collin could not attend the current meeting, it was clear that the next step was to clarify the technical and organisational aspects of obtaining LoRN from LPSN, after which another meeting would be arranged. M. Göker explained how data on LPSN are available, with a focus on LoRN. This includes browsing the website, downloading the CSV file, and using the API. Bruker had various options for making use of these data. Even if Bruker did not wish to assess whether the naming of prokaryotes in their systems aligned with LoRN, LPSN would still enable them to efficiently incorporate additional information, such as synonyms for existing names. M. Cordovana suggested arranging a meeting with her and two colleagues at Bruker and M. Göker to discuss these options in detail. With regard to contact with the NCBI taxonomy team, M. Göker reiterated that the team requested in spring 2025 that this be postponed until after the summer break. Currently, US government agencies are affected by the government shutdown. The NCBI website indicated that updates were not possible. J. Vázquez-Boland added that sequences could still be submitted, but they are not currently being processed by the NCBI. He does not expect anyone at the NCBI to respond by email at the moment. S. Butler-Wu added that government personnel may not even be permitted to 2 use their official email addresses. Although S. Emler agreed to participate in a meeting with NCBI taxonomy staff, it was clear that such a meeting could not currently be arranged. J. Vázquez-Boland suggested reaching out to ENA (EMBL) instead. M. Göker reiterated that, as the other INSDC databases rely on the NCBI taxonomy, it was unclear whether it would even be possible to make direct changes to the taxonomy used by ENA. S. Emler asked if anyone had already contacted ENA. J. Vázquez-Boland volunteered to contact ENA to arrange a meeting on this topic. V. Fingerle suggested contacting the president of ESCMID regarding CoMiCProN and LoRN, since there was no one at ESCMID specifically responsible for taxonomy. M. Göker noted that, apart from addressing specific study groups, distributing information within ESCMID had only been partially successful in the past. V. Fingerle and M. Göker agreed that V. Fingerle would adapt the letter previously used to contact multipliers. G. Margos suggested contacting PubMLST regarding their approach to naming prokaryotes. Minute 10. Any other business V. Fingerle noted that there was no one at ESCMID specifically responsible for taxonomy or nomenclature. A suggestion for a workshop on this subject at a previous ESCMID conference had been rejected. He reiterated the option of forming an ESCMID study group on the subject and stated that CoMiCProN would fulfil the necessary criteria. However, M. Göker opined that, given the limited resources, this would only be possible if CoMiCProN could simultaneously be a subcommittee of the ICSP and a study group of ESCMID. He questioned whether the ICSP and ESCMID regulations were compatible in this regard. It was agreed that this issue would be assessed in detail. As the next regular meeting date was very close to the present meeting, the date of the next meeting was discussed. It was agreed that a date would be arranged via e-mail. Matters Arising / Action points All committee members to update and augment the CoMiCProN list of potential multipliers. S. Butler-Wu to continue to try to identify the contact person for the risk group classification in the USA. S. Butler-Wu to follow up on her contacts with US Bruker representatives and provide information on those who would like to join the committee. V. Collin to liaise again with M. Göker concerning the usage of LoRN by BioMérieux. M. Cordovana to arrange for a meeting with her colleagues and M. Göker concerning the possible usage of LoRN by Bruker. V. Fingerle to sent the adapted letter to multipliers to the president of ESCMID. V. Fingerle to study the ESCMID regulations on study groups for their compatibility with the ICSP regulations on subcommittees. M. Göker to publish the minutes of the last meeting on Zenodo. 3 M. Göker to inform the newly elected committee member. M. Göker sent the template for a letter to multipliers to V. Fingerle. M. Göker to address additionally included multipliers. M. Göker to update the list of CoMiCProN milestones. M. Göker to further assess the possible inclusion of plant pathogens in LoRN. G. Margos to contact PubMLST regarding their approach to naming prokaryotes. E.R.B. Moore to continue trying to find the contact person for the Swedish risk group classification. J. Vázquez-Boland to contact EMBL/ENA to arrange for a meeting on prokaryotic nomenclature. J. Vázquez-Boland to start drafting a manuscript on CoMiCProN's recommendations for the return of the subgenus, targeting the IJSEM journal. J. Vázquez-Boland to continue to work with E.R.B. Moore on the details of CoMiCProN on the ICSP website. 4