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Research Project: Invasive Ant Biology and Control

Location: Imported Fire Ant and Household Insects Research

Title: ICTV virus taxonomy profile: Polycipiviridae

Author
item BROWN, KATY - University Of Cambridge
item OLENDRAITE, INGRIDA - University Of Cambridge
item Valles, Steven
item FIRTH, ANDREW - University Of Cambridge
item Chen, Yanping - Judy
item GUERIN, DIEGO - University Of Basque Country
item HASHIMOTO, YOSHIFUMI - Protein Sciences Corporation
item HERRERO, SALVADOR - University Of Valencia
item DE MIRANDA, JUACHIM - Swedish University Of Agricultural Sciences
item RYABOV, EUGENE - US Department Of Agriculture (USDA)

Submitted to: Journal of General Virology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/12/2019
Publication Date: 1/4/2019
Citation: Brown, K., Olendraite, I., Valles, S.M., Firth, A., Chen, Y., Guerin, D., Hashimoto, Y., Herrero, S., De Miranda, J., Ryabov, E. 2019. ICTV virus taxonomy profile: Polycipiviridae. Journal of General Virology. 100(4):554-555. https://doi.org/10.1099/jgv.0.001241.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1099/jgv.0.001241

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 the viruses in the newly described family, Polycipiviridae. Members of this virus family are significant to the agricultural community because they may be used as natural enemies of insect pests (e.g., fire ants). This is the first paper summarizing the characteristics of this new family of viruses.

Technical Abstract: Polycipiviridae is a family of picorna-like viruses with non-segmented, linear, positive-sense RNA genomes of approximately 10–12 kb. Unusually within the order Picornavirales, their genomes are polycistronic, with four (or more) consecutive 5' ORFs encoding structural (and possibly other) proteins and a long 3' ORF encoding the replication polyprotein. All classified species within the family were derived from arthropods, with the majority coming from ants. This is a summary of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) Report on the taxonomy of the Polycipiviridae which is available at www.ictv.global/report/polycipiviridae.