Abstract
Minute 4. Minutes of the previous meeting
The minutes of the last meetings, which were held on 16 and 17 August 1999 in Sydney, Australia, had been approved by mail and published [Bernardet, Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 52 (2002), 10711072]. A discussion arose on several points that had been raised during the last subcommittee meeting and included in the minutes. In response to the proposal by K. A. Malik to use the Riboprinter in the DSMZ to determine the ribotype of a collection of strains belonging to the FlavobacteriumCytophaga group, P. Schumann explained that the three restriction enzymes commonly used yield poor data when these bacteria are tested and that the use of other enzymes requires preliminary adaptation of the technique. It was noted by B. Holmes that the number of new taxa described from a single strain appears to have decreased, possibly as a result of the publication of minimal standards for several taxa, in which this practice is not encouraged. Concerning the absence of updating of bacterial nomenclature in sequence databases, B. Holmes suggested that a letter be sent to the chairman of the ICSP to ask that he uses his influence to require their staff to make an effort on this issue. When subcommittee members have found incorrect 16S rRNA sequences in databases, it may also be possible that they require that these sequences be deleted from the databases. B. Holmes also agreed to try again to establish some kind of relationship with the Subcommittee on the taxonomy of Gram-negative anaerobic rods.