Strengthening the Interaction of the Virology Community with the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) by Linking Virus Names and Their Abbreviations to Virus Species

Charles H. Calisher (1) , Thomas Briese (2) , J. Rodney Brister (3) , Rémi Charrel (4) , Ralf Dürrwald (5) , Hideki Ebihara (6) , Charles Fulhorst (7) , George Fú Gao (8) , Mart Groschup (9) , Andrew Haddow (10) , Timothy Hyndman (11) , Sandra Junglen (12) , Boris Klempa (13) , Jonas Klingström (14) , Andrew Kropinski (15) , Mart Krupovic (16) , a Desiree Labeaud (17) , Piet Maes (18) , Norbert Nowotny (19, 20) , Márcio Roberto Teixeira Nunes (21) , Susan Payne (22) , Sheli Radoshitzky (10) , Dennis Rubbenstroth (9) , Sead Sabanadzovic (23) , Takahide Sasaya (24) , Mark Stenglein (1) , Arvind Varsani (25) , Victoria Wahl (26) , Scott Weaver (7) , Francisco Murilo Zerbini (27) , Nikos Vasilakis (7) , Jens Kuhn (28)

1 CSU - Colorado State University [Fort Collins]
2 Columbia University [New York]
3 NIH - National Institutes of Health [Bethesda]
4 UVE - Unité des Virus Emergents
5 RKI - Robert Koch Institute [Berlin]
6 Mayo Clinic
7 UTMB - The University of Texas Medical Branch
8 Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention
9 FLI - Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut
10 U.S. Army - United States Army
11 Murdoch University
12 HSU - Humboldt State University
13 SAS - Slovak Academy of Science [Bratislava]
14 Karolinska Institutet [Stockholm]
15 University of Guelph
16 BMGE - Biologie Moléculaire du Gène chez les Extrêmophiles
17 Stanford School of Medicine [Stanford]
18 Rega Institute for Medical Research [Leuven, België]
19 MBRU - Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences
20 Vetmeduni - University of Veterinary Medicine [Vienna]
21 Ministry of Health [Brasília, Brazil]
22 Texas A&M University [College Station]
23 Mississippi State University [Mississippi]
24 NARO - National Agriculture and Food Research Organization
25 ASU - Arizona State University [Tempe]
26 National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center [Frederick]
27 UFV - Universidade Federal de Viçosa = Federal University of Viçosa
28 NIAID-NIH - National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases [Bethesda]

The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) is tasked with classifying viruses into taxa (orders to species) and devising taxon names. Virus names and virus name abbreviations are currently not within the ICTV's official remit and are not regulated by an official entity. Many scientists, medical/veterinary professionals, and regulatory agencies do not address evolutionary questions nor are they concerned with the hierarchical organization of the viral world and therefore have limited use for ICTV-devised taxa. Instead, these professionals look to the ICTV as an expert point source that provides the most current taxonomic affiliations of viruses of interests to facilitate document writing. These needs are currently unmet as an ICTV-supported, easily-searchable database that includes all published virus names and abbreviations linked to their taxa is not available. In addition, in stark contrast to other biological taxonomic frameworks, virus taxonomy currently permits individual species to have several members. Consequently, confusion emerges among those who are not aware of the difference between taxa and viruses, and because certain well-known viruses cannot be located in ICTV publications or be linked to their species. In addition, the number of duplicate names and abbreviations has increased dramatically in the literature. To solve this conundrum, the ICTV could mandate listing all viruses of established species and all reported unclassified viruses in forthcoming online ICTV Reports and create a searchable webpage using this information. The International Union of Microbiology Societies could also consider changing the mandate of the ICTV to include the nomenclature of all viruses in addition to taxon considerations. With such a mandate expansion, official virus names and name abbreviations could be catalogued and virus nomenclature could be standardized. As a result, the ICTV would become an even more useful resource for all stakeholders in virology.

Keywords: Arbovirus; classification; International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses; (ICTV); nomenclature; species; taxonomy; virus

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Life Sciences [q-bio]; Microbiology and Parasitology; Virology; Life Sciences [q-bio]; Biodiversity; Systematics, Phylogenetics and taxonomy

Charles H. Calisher, Thomas Briese, J. Rodney Brister, Rémi Charrel, Ralf Dürrwald, et al.. Strengthening the Interaction of the Virology Community with the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) by Linking Virus Names and Their Abbreviations to Virus Species. Systematic Biology, 2019, 68 (5), pp.828-839. ⟨10.1093/sysbio/syy087⟩. ⟨pasteur-01977321⟩