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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Gainesville, Florida » Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology » Imported Fire Ant and Household Insects Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #335791
Title: ICTV virus taxonomy profile: dicistroviridae

Author
item Valles, Steven
item Chen, Yanping - Judy
item FIRTH, ANDREW - University Of Cambridge
item GUERIN, DIEGO - University Of Basque Country
item HASHIMOTO, YOSHIFUMI - Protein Sciences Corporation
item HERRERO, SALVADOR - University Of Valencia
item DE MIRANDA, JOACHIM - Swedish University Of Agricultural Sciences
item RYABOV, EUGENE - University Of Warwick

Submitted to: Journal of General Virology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/16/2017
Publication Date: 4/3/2017
Citation: Valles, S.M., Chen, Y., Firth, A.E., Guerin, D.M., Hashimoto, Y., Herrero, S., De Miranda, J., Ryabov, E. 2017. ICTV virus taxonomy profile: dicistroviridae. Journal of General Virology. 98:355-356. doi:10.1099/jgv.0.000756.

Interpretive Summary: Next generation sequencing and metagenomics have vastly accelerated the discovery of new viruses, which, unfortunately, has created a backlog of unclassified viruses. The International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) is charged with assigning and maintaining a universal virus taxonomy. Scientists (and members of the ICTV) at the USDA-ARS Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology (CMAVE, Gainesville, FL), Bee Research Lab (Beltsville, MD), University of Cambridge, (Cambridge, UK), University of the Basque Country (Leioa, Spain), Protein Sciences Corporation (Meriden, CT), University of Valencia (Burjassot, Spain), University of Warwick (Coventry, UK), and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Uppsala, Sweden), have completed a review and summary of viruses in the Dicistroviridae family. Members of this virus family are significant to the agricultural community because they harm beneficial insects (e.g., honeybees) or may be used as natural enemies of insect pests (e.g., fire ants). This review brings the taxonomy of the Dicistroviridae up-to-date for the scientific community.

Technical Abstract: Dicistroviridae is a family of small non-enveloped viruses with RNA genomes of approximately 8-10 kilobases in length. All members infect arthropod hosts with some having devastating economic consequences, such as Acute bee paralysis virus, Kashmir bee virus, and Israeli acute paralysis virus toward domesticated honeybees, and Taura syndrome virus and Mud crab virus in the seafood industry. Conversely, host specificity and other desirable traits make several members of this group amenable to development as biopesticides for insect control, such as Solenopsis invicta virus 1 against fire ants, and Triatoma virus against triatomine bugs that vector Chagas disease.