A review on taxonomy of Bacillus cereus group

The Bacillus cereus group (B. cereus group) is a species complex composed of Bacillus cereus (B. cereus) and its closely related species. The classification and identification of species within this group is complicated and difficult due to the high similarity in phenotypic and genetic characteristics. With the development of molecular biology and genomics in recent years, the taxonomic research of B. cereus group has developed rapidly, and several current taxonomic framework have been formed in parallel, including phenotypic, genomic, and genomospecies/subspecies/biovar taxonomy that combines phenotype and genomic characteristics. The research progress was reviewed in this paper.