RDP Classifier Files

RDP Classifier 2.15 (November 2026) Release Note:

The Bacteria and Archaea hierarchy model used by RDP Classifier has been updated to RDP Taxonomy training set No. 21. This major update incorporates the newly validly published names of cultured microorganisms (mostly from type strains), as well as validated names of uncultured prokaryotes based on genome sequences from SeqCode registry (Hedlund et al., 2022) up to August 2026. It consists of 23,850 species and 5,058 genera, a substantial increase of 25% and 30% respectively compared to the previous version No. 19 released in 2023. About 7% (1,582) species came from SeqCode. Numerous nomenclature changes were made to keep the database updated with current consensus to maintain and improve classification accuracy.


In addition to the files to train and run the RDP Classifier, additional file formats are made available to accommodate the needs of users:

1. Assign closest-species identification using trainset21_082026_speciesrank.fa as it contains genus, species, strain, type status and taxonomy lineage information.

2. Retain the RDP Classifier included in Qiime2 package using files in RDPClassifier_16S_trainsetNo21_QiimeFormat.zip.

For suggestions and feedback, please contact:
Contact: Qiong Wang wangqion@gmail.com or qiong.wang@iff.com
         James Cole colej@msu.edu


References:

Hedlund BP, Chuvochina M, Hugenholtz P, Konstantinidis KT, Murray AE, Palmer M, Parks DH, Probst AJ, Reysenbach AL, Rodriguez-R LM, Rossello-Mora R, Sutcliffe IC, Venter SN, Whitman WB. SeqCode: a nomenclatural code for prokaryotes described from sequence data. Nat Microbiol. 2022 Oct;7(10):1702-1708.