Contributors: University of Oxford; Quadram Institute Bioscience Norwich, U.K. (QIB); Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC); Universidade Federal de Viçosa = Federal University of Viçosa (UFV); Center for Cooperative Research in Biosciences = Centro de Investigación cooperativa en biociencia (Derio, Biscay, Espagne) (CIC bioGUNE); Mahidol University Bangkok; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing (UCAS); Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey New Brunswick (RU); Rutgers University System (Rutgers); Universiteit Utrecht / Utrecht University Utrecht; Charité - UniversitätsMedizin = Charité - University Hospital Berlin; National Institutes of Health Bethesda, MD, USA (NIH); Virologie des archées - Archaeal Virology; Université Paris Cité (UPCité)-Microbiologie Intégrative et Moléculaire (UMR6047); Institut Pasteur Paris (IP)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pasteur Paris (IP)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); University College Cork (UCC); MRC - University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Berkeley (LBNL); CNR Istituto per la Protezione Sostenibile delle Piante Torino, Italia (IPSP); National Research Council of Italy; Mississippi State University Mississippi; Okayama University; University of the West of England Bristol (UWE Bristol); Universidade Nova de Lisboa = NOVA University Lisbon (NOVA); Arizona State University Tempe (ASU); The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB); European Project: 865694,H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC),DiversiPHI(2020)
نبذة مختصرة : International audience ; A universal taxonomy of viruses is essential for a comprehensive view of the virus world and for communicating the complicated evolutionary relationships among viruses. However, there are major differences in the conceptualisation and approaches to virus classification and nomenclature among virologists, clinicians, agronomists, and other interested parties. Here, we provide recommendations to guide the construction of a coherent and comprehensive virus taxonomy, based on expert scientific consensus. Firstly, assignments of viruses should be congruent with the best attainable reconstruction of their evolutionary histories, i.e., taxa should be monophyletic. This fundamental principle for classification of viruses is currently included in the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) code only for the rank of species. Secondly, phenotypic and ecological properties of viruses may inform, but not override, evolutionary relatedness in the placement of ranks. Thirdly, alternative classifications that consider phenotypic attributes, such as being vector-borne (e.g., “arboviruses”), infecting a certain type of host (e.g., “mycoviruses,” “bacteriophages”) or displaying specific pathogenicity (e.g., “human immunodeficiency viruses”), may serve important clinical and regulatory purposes but often create polyphyletic categories that do not reflect evolutionary relationships. Nevertheless, such classifications ought to be maintained if they serve the needs of specific communities or play a practical clinical or regulatory role. However, they should not be considered or called taxonomies. Finally, while an evolution-based framework enables viruses discovered by metagenomics to be incorporated into the ICTV taxonomy, there are essential requirements for quality control of the sequence data used for these assignments. Combined, these four principles will enable future development and expansion of virus taxonomy as the true evolutionary diversity of viruses becomes apparent.
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