Virus Taxonomy

Claude Fauquet is a renowned plant virologist that has now embarked on plant biotechnology for the last 10 years. Dr. Fauquet has extensive experience in field virology and epidemiology, but also in molecular and experimental virology. He is mostly interested in tropical plant viruses and particularly in geminiviruses that are devastating tropical crops. In 1991, he became Director of ILTAB (International Laboratory for Agricultural Biotechnology), a joint French-American project aiming at transferring plant biotechnologies to less developing countries. Born and schooled in London; graduated in Botany and then obtained a Ph.D at the University of Nottingham. Spent career in Virology Department at the Scottish Crop Research Institute (formerly the Scottish Horticultural Research Institute) at Dundee except for a sabbatical year in L'Institut de Biologie Moleculaire et Cellulaire, Strasbourg. Currently am an Honorary Research Fellow. During career I published 150 research papers and 85 reviews and book chapters. I have been involved as an editor for 8 books and I have been on several Editorial Boards as well as being Editor for Journal of General Virology, Archives of Virology and Journal of Plant Pathology. Served on the Executive Committee of ICTV for the last 17 years variously as Study Group Chair, Subcommittee Chair and latterly Secretary. Jack Maniloff is Professor Emeritus of Microbiology and Immunology in the School of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Rochester. His research has elucidated the ultrastructure and molecular biology of mycoplasma cells and viruses. The latter studies were the beginning of mycoplasma virology and included description of several new virus taxa, first demonstration of restriction and modification in mycoplasmas, and development of the first method for genetic transfer in mycoplasmas. More recent studies have focused on the phylogeny of mycoplasma cells and viruses and chronology of the origin and evolution of microorganisms and their hosts. His awards include a USPHS-NIH Research Career Development Award, a Fogarty Senior International Fellowship, and the 2000 University of Heidelberg Lectureship in Molecular Mycoplasmology. Prof. Maniloff joined the ICTV as elected member in 1990, then as subcommittee chair in 1993 for the Porkaryote viruses and he became Vice-President of ICTV in 1999. Ulrich Desselberger MD FRCPath FRCP (Glasgow, London), Research Assistant and Consultant, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany, 1968-1976 (apl. Professor for Medical Microbiology, Hannover, Medical School, 1983); Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Assistant Professor, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, 1977-1979; Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Virologist, University of Glasgow, Scotland UK, 1980-1987; Consultant Virologist and Director, Regional Virus Laboratory, Birmingham UK, 1988-1990; Consultant Virologist and Director, Clinical Microbiology and Public Health Laboratory, Cambridge UK, 1991-2002 (Clinical Director of Pathology, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, 1998-2002); Senior Research Fellow, CNRS, Gif-sur-Yvette, France, 2002-present. Main scientific interests: genome analysis of RNA viruses (influenzaviruses, rotaviruses, retroviruses a.o.), rotavirus replication, viral determinants of pathogenicity, molecular techniques of viral diagnosis, molecular epidemiology. Dr. L. Andrew Ball received a D. Phil. in biochemistry from Oxford University in 1969. He first discovered the attractions of viruses as experimental systems while studying the replication of RNA phage when he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Since then he has held academic positions at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, UK; the University of Connecticut–Storrs; the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In his research he has used viruses in the families Rhabdoviridae, Paramyxoviridae, Poxviridae, Nodaviridae, and Tetraviridae to study transcription, replication, and recombination of viral DNA and RNA, as well as the control of gene expression by the cellular mechanisms of innate immunity. He served as chair of the ICTV nodavirus/tetravirus Study Group for six years and as chair of the Invertebrate virus subcommittee before being elected ICTV President in 2002.

ContentsPrefacePart I: Introduction to Universal Virus Taxonomy3Part II: The Viruses9A Glossary of Abbreviations and Terms10 Taxa Listed by Nucleic Acid and Size of the Genome12The Virosphere 200414The Virus Diagrams14The Virus Particle Structures19The Order of Presentation of the Viruses23The Double Stranded DNA Viruses33The Single Stranded DNA Viruses277The DNA and RNA Reverse Transcribing Viruses371The Double Stranded RNA Viruses441The Negative Sense Single Stranded RNA Viruses607The Positive Sense Single Stranded RNA Viruses739The Unassigned Viruses1127The Subviral Agents1143Viroids1145Satellites1161Vertebrate Prions1169Fungal Prions1177Part III: The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses1189Officers and Members of the ICTV, 1999-20021191The Statutes of the ICTV, 19981203The Code of Virus Classification and Nomenclature, 19981207Part IV: Indexes1213Virus Index1215Taxonomic Index1256