A list of proposed standard acronyms for plant viruses and viroids
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A list of proposed standard acronyms for plant viruses and viroids For many years acronyms have been used as abbrevations of the names of plant viruses and, more recently, of viroids. There has however been no clear agreement as to which abbrevation should stand for a given entity, and this has led to inconsistency and, sometimes, confusion. Also there have been no clear rules by which an acronym should be constructed. Under the chairmanship of R. I. Hamilton and later of G. P. Martelli, the Plant Virus Subcommittee of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) appointed a working group (the present authors) to examine the question. Our task was to produce a standardized list with a reasonable chance of gaining the allegiance of the majority of plant virus/viroid workers and editors, and to make recommendations as to how new acronyms should be constructed when the occasion arises. Lists of acronyms have already been produced [13, 4], the second based on the first, and others [2, 3, 7-9, 11, 14] have also used acronyms that are mostly consistent with these lists. Such acronyms have the merit of wide usage but are not constructed according to any consistent logic, so we have also considered the following two alternative systems. 1. That proposed by Smith [12], based on the Bayer system. This uses a six-letter code made up from the first two letters designating the host, the next 1-3 letters describing the agent (e.g., symptoms) and the last letters specifying the type of agent (virus). The code is padded with X's to make up the six letters. Examples would be TOMVXX (tobacco mosaic virus) or POXVXX (potato virus X). Adoption of this system would mean a complete change of all acronyms; it would be computer-friendly but hardly friendly to users. 2. A new system based on host name (three letters) and symptom (two letters). This would use many existing acronyms but would also mean changing a significant number. Examples are CarMtV (carnation mottle virus), TobMoV (tobacco mosaic virus), and TomMoV (tomato mosaic virus). We conclude that, although the traditional system has faults, new acronyms constructed to precise rules would be unfamiliar and cumbersome, and it would be unrealistic to expect users to adopt them. Thus we propose an updated list on traditional lines. The only rules we have adopted, and that we recommend to future constructors of new acronyms are (i) be as simple as possible, (it') avoid duplication, (iii) the word "virus" shall be abbreviated as "V", and (iv) the word "viroid" shall be abbreviated as "Vd" (this follows the ICTV proposal at Edmonton, 1988). We have also used some flexible guidelines such as (a) where similar names contain the terms "mosaic" and "mottle", e.g., cowpea mosaic, cowpea mottle , we have preferred " M " for mosaic and " M o " for mottle (i.e., CPMV, CPMoV respectively); (b) "-ringspot virus" has generally been rendered -RSV even where -RV would have sufficed; (c) the second or third letter, or sometimes the second consonant, of the virus name, in low
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