2026/06/04 by Federica Palma, Mélanie Hennart, Keith A. Jolley +19 · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Salmonella and Campylobacter epidemiology #Bacterial Identification and Susceptibility Testing #Yersinia bacterium, plague, ectoparasites research
paper · doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3003781
Unified strain taxonomies are needed for the epidemiological surveillance of bacterial pathogens and international communication in microbiological research. Core genome multilocus sequence typing (cgMLST) holds great promise for standardized high-resolution strain genotyping. However, this approach faces challenges including classification instability and disconnection of new nomenclature from widely adopted classical MLST identifiers. This Essay discusses the cgMLST-based Life Identification Number (LIN) method, recently proposed as a stable multilevel strain taxonomy system applicable to most bacterial pathogens, covering how LIN codes are implemented and used in practice for precise strain definitions and epidemiological tracking.