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

A novel <i>Stenotrophomonas</i> 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 <i>Stenotrophomonas</i>. Related strains in public genome databases suggested that this novel species is associated with clinically acquired infections, similar to closely related <i>Stenotrophomonas maltophilia</i>. The name <i>Stenotrophomonas forensis</i> sp. nov. is proposed. Comparative genomic and phylogenetic analyses of the <i>S. maltophilia</i> complex reveal that <i>Stenotrophomonas africana</i> is an independent species and is not a later heterotypic synonym of <i>S. maltophilia</i>. We also propose the transfer of two misclassified <i>Pseudomonas</i> species into <i>Stenotrophomonas</i> as <i>Stenotrophomonas beteli</i> comb. nov. and <i>Stenotrophomonas hibiscicola</i> comb. nov. The type strain for <i>S. forensis</i> sp. nov. is DFS-20110405^T (=ATCC TSD-272^T=NCTC 14893^T).