The bacterial family Pasteurellaceae Pohl 1979 includes opportunistic and primary pathogens mainly associated with warm blooded animals including humans. Classification of the family originally included three genera, Pasteurella, Haemophilus and Actinobacillus. Further taxonomic work, mainly involving phenotypic characterization and molecular classification based on DNA-DNA hybridization and 16S rRNA gene sequence phylogenetic analysis has resulted in numerous new genera as well as reclassification of some of the original members of Pasteurella, Haemophilus and Actinobacillus resulting by the end of 2018 in a total of 28 genera with standing in nomenclature.
New genera and species within the family were identified from publications in Int. J. System. Evol. Microbiol. and the Validation Lists published in the journal. Type strains with genomes published were identified at NCBI. The Genome to Genome Distance Calculator (GGDC) was used to estimate DNA-DNA binding between strains.
During the period 2014-2018, ten new genera (Caviibacterium, Conservatibacter, Cricetibacter, Frederiksenia, Mesocricetibacter, Muribacter, Rodentibacter, Ursidibacter, Testudinibacter, Vespertiliibacter) have been classified and validly named within the Pasteurellaceae. In addition to the type species of the new genera one new species (Bisgaardia miroungae) has been classified and validly named as well as 7 new species in Rodentibacter. In total, 90 species in 28 genera are validly named and will have standing in nomenclature in 2018. Unfortunately a new species Pasteurella caecimuris has been validly named and needs to be reclassified since it is unrelated to Pasteurella sensu stricto.
More than half (53) of type strains of species included with 14 genera of Pasteurellaceae are now available as whole genome sequences and have stimulated taxonomic research by enabling the calculation of species relationships. Whole genome sequencing of the remaining 37 type strains of the family will provide a complete framework for genetic classification both at genus and species level.