While preparing our upcoming release, we identified an issue that could affect whether your genomes are included in the GTDB.
The issue: MAGs submitted to INSDC without taxonomic annotations, typically those listed as ‘metagenome’ in the Taxon field, are excluded from important INSDC data files. This means they will not be considered for inclusion in GTDB. Examples:
- metagenomes: Genome - NCBI - NLM
- soil metagenomes: Genome - NCBI - NLM
What you can do: When submitting your MAGs, please provide at least a domain-level taxonomic affiliation (e.g., Bacteria or Archaea) in the Taxon field. This ensures your data remains eligible for GTDB.
We know how much effort goes into generating high-quality MAGs, and we want to make sure that work is represented in the database, including any newly named taxa. If you have already submitted genomes tagged as ‘metagenome’, consider updating those records with the appropriate taxonomic label.
Thank you for your contributions to the community, and happy classifying!