Hi @em_joyce ,
In the vOct22_202212 database there were some taxonomic inconsistencies. It has now been fixed in a vOct22_202403 updated version of the database, which contains the same SGBs with fixed taxonomic labels. The file you noticed is used by the fix_relab_mpa4.py script that allows you to fix the taxonomy of profiles built with vOct22_202212. More details at: Announcing MetaPhlAn 4.1.1 release