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. 2005 Aug 16:2:64.
doi: 10.1186/1743-422X-2-64.

International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses and the 3,142 unassigned species

C M Fauquet  1 , D Fargette
Affiliations

International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses and the 3,142 unassigned species

C M Fauquet et al. Virol J. .

Abstract

In 2005, ICTV (International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses), the official body of the Virology Division of the International Union of Microbiological Societies responsible for naming and classifying viruses, will publish its latest report, the state of the art in virus nomenclature and taxonomy. The book lists more than 6,000 viruses classified in 1,950 species and in more than 391 different higher taxa. However, GenBank contains a staggering additional 3,142 "species" unaccounted for by the ICTV report. This paper reviews the reasons for such a situation and suggests what might be done in the near future to remedy this problem, particularly in light of the potential for a ten-fold increase in virus sequencing in the coming years that would generate many unclassified viruses. A number of changes could be made both at ICTV and GenBank to better handle virus taxonomy and classification in the future.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Linear correlation between the number of virus sequences recorded at GenBank between 1996 and 2005 and the number of virus taxa and virus isolates.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Diagrammatic organization of the ICTV.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Diagrammatic organization of the TaxoProp Management System (TPMS) database.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Diagrammatic organization of the taxonomic proposals system at ICTV.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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