Expanding the Stenotrophomonas maltophilia complex: phylogenomic insights, proposal of Stenotrophomonas forensis sp. nov. and reclassification of two Pseudomonas species

A novel Stenotrophomonas species was isolated as a contaminant in viral transport media at the District of Columbia Department of Forensic Sciences Public Health Laboratory. Phylogenomic and biochemical analyses of the isolate determined that it represented a novel species within Stenotrophomonas . Related strains in public genome databases suggested that this novel species is associated with clinically acquired infections, similar to closely related Stenotrophomonas maltophilia . The name Stenotrophomonas forensis sp. nov. is proposed. Comparative genomic and phylogenetic analyses of the S. maltophilia complex reveal that Stenotrophomonas africana is an independent species and is not a later heterotypic synonym of S. maltophilia . We also propose the transfer of two misclassified Pseudomonas species into Stenotrophomonas as Stenotrophomonas beteli comb. nov. and Stenotrophomonas hibiscicola comb. nov. The type strain for S. forensis sp. nov. is DFS-20110405 T (=ATCC TSD-272 T =NCTC 14893 T ).