RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Next generation taxonomy: integrating traditional species description with the holobiont concept and genomic approaches - The in-depth characterization of a novel Euplotes species as a case study JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 666461 DO 10.1101/666461 A1 Valentina Serra A1 Leandro Gammuto A1 Venkatamahesh Nitla A1 Michele Castelli A1 Olivia Lanzoni A1 Davide Sassera A1 Claudio Bandi A1 Bhagavatula Venkata Sandeep A1 Franco Verni A1 Letizia Modeo A1 Giulio Petroni YR 2019 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/06/11/666461.abstract AB In 1991 Margulis defined holobionts as the assemblage of “two or more organisms, members of different species” which remain associate “throughout a significant portion of the life history”. In recent times, holobionts have been described among many and far-related groups of living beings, such as plants, algae, insects, corals, and even humans. These studies have arisen an increasing interest in different contexts but, to our knowledge, the holobiont concept has not been applied in taxonomy. Here we propose a new approach to modern taxonomy, aimed to integrate the holobiont concept and genomic and bioinformatic analyses with the classical/morphological tools traditionally used in taxonomy. The inclusion of symbiont morphology, and of mitochondrial and symbiont genomes will allow the discipline to move toward what could become the “next generation taxonomy”. As an example of this new paradigm in the characterization of holobionts, we herein provide the taxonomic description of the ciliate protist Euplotes vanleeuwenhoeki sp. nov. (Euplotia, Ciliophora) and its bacterial endosymbiont “Candidatus Pinguicoccus supinus” gen. nov., sp. nov. (Opitutae, Verrucomicrobia). Interestingly, we found that this endosymbiont has an extremely reduced genome (~163 Kbp), which is suggestive of a high integration with the host and represents the first case of such an extreme reduction in Verrucomicrobia, and the first case in a protist host.