Scientists Race to Save Virus Classifications From Deletion
Researchers are calling on virologists worldwide to submit missing genetic data before mid-2023 or risk losing official classification of hundreds of hantaviruses. The push reflects a growing tension in science: new rules requiring complete genetic sequences for virus cataloging are leaving older, already-classified viruses vulnerable to being delisted—a problem that could complicate disease tracking and research.
Originaltitel: Pending Reorganization of <i>Hantaviridae</i> to Include Only Completely Sequenced Viruses: A Call to Action
<p>The official classification of newly discovered or long-known unassigned viruses by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) requires the deposition of coding-complete or -near-complete virus genome sequences in GenBank to fulfill a requirement of the taxonomic proposal (TaxoProp) process. However, this requirement is fairly new; thus, genomic sequence information is fragmented or absent for many already-classified viruses. As a result, taxon-wide modern phylogenetic analyses are often challenging, if not impossible. This problem is particularly eminent among viruses with segmented genomes, such as bunyavirals, which were frequently classified solely based on single-segment sequence information. To solve this issue for one bunyaviral family, Hantaviridae, we call on the community to provide additional sequence information for incompletely sequenced classified viruses by mid-June 2023. Such sequence information may be sufficient to prevent their possible declassification during the ongoing efforts to establish a coherent, consistent, and evolution-based hantavirid taxonomy.</p>