Classification up to species level

Journal club
1

Hi,
I wonder if we can classify the 16s rRNA data up to species level. I was going through the EzBioCloud 16S database and there was suggestions that we can classify 16S ngs data up to species level. They have curated formats are compatible with QIIME and MOTHUR pipelines.

I tried my sequences with their database, the results up to genus level is more or less similar to Silva, but it further classifies sequences to several species. I have doubt on validity of the results, whether we can present data of species level classification based on only 460 bp of 16S?

2

Sorry, but it really isn’t reliable to classify 16S rRNA gene sequences (much less 250 nt) to the species level. You really need a full genome sequence to pull that off.

pat

3

Thanks Pat for clearing my doubt!

Regards,
Jitendra