Perspectives on binomial names of virus species
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Virology Division News
Perspectives on binomial names of virus species M. H. V. Van Regenmortel École Supérieure de Biotechnologie de Strasbourg, Illkirch, France
In recent years, the ICTV has been criticized [3, 4, 6] for its unwillingness to turn the unofficial binomial names of plant virus species used by many plant virologists into official names. It seems timely, therefore, to spell out the implications of such a binomial system if it were used for all the official species names that appeared in the 7th ICTV Report [11]. Only if this is done, will it be possible for virologists to assess both the advantages and disadvantages of a binomial system. It is hoped that the present note will elicit many responses from individual virologists. In the proposed binomial system, the word virus appearing at the end of the current official species name is replaced by the genus name, which also ends in «-virus». For example, Tobacco mosaic virus becomes Tobacco mosaic tobamovirus Plumpox virus becomes Plumpox potyvirus Rice dwarf virus becomes Rice dwarf phytoreovirus Potato virus X becomes Potato X potexvirus The obvious advantage of such a system is that inclusion of the genus name in the species name indicates relationships with other viruses and thus provides additional information about the properties of the virus. Plant virologists have been careful to coin genus names in accordance with the ICTV International Code and as a result, the binomial system is readily applicable to plant viruses. For viruses infecting vertebrates, the system could also be useful since binomials would be more informative than the current names. Thus, Bluetongue virus would become Bluetongue orbivirus Yellow fever virus would become Yellow fever flavivirus Human herpesvirus 5 would become Human herpes 5 cytomegalovirus This system should be applied only to the accepted official virus species names that at present are written in italics and not to tentative species, strains, serotypes etc. Only the official binomial names of virus species would thus be written in italics. In the case of virus names that contain the word «phage», the genus name could simply be added at the end. For example, Bacillus phage AP50 would become Bacillus phage AP50 tectivirus Alteromonas phage PM2 would become Alteromonas phage PM2 corticovirus
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Virology Division News
An alternative would be to remove the term phage altogether, which could result in names such as Bacillus AP50 tectivirus and Alteromonas PM2 corticovirus. One argument used against the introduction of official binomial names is that long established virus names would have to be abandoned. This, however, is not the case since classical names could be retained and used as vernacular names when the taxonomic position of the virus is not being considered. Measles virus (not in italics) would continue to be used alongside the official binomial Measles morbillivirus (in italics), which would be used only in a taxonomic context and would appear as such in texts written in languages other than English
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