How to find the name of a virus species

Have you ever wanted to find the official ICTV species name for a virus when all you have is a disease name, common name, or isolate id? This "Find the Species" tool will provide the current taxon name (species or higher taxonomic rank) for a virus when you enter a full or partial name into the search box below. It uses current and past databases from the ICTV (MSL and VMR lists) and NCBI to make the connection with a taxon name. Results are dependent on identifying a match in one of these databases and determining the most recent ICTV virus taxon based on that match. Carefully review your results as they may miss the correct species or may provide an incorrect answer.

Search Process

  1. Search selector: Choose a search strategy from the dropdown selection list:
    1. Exact match: The words of your query in the order entered must match exactly to a word or phrase in our virus database.
    2. All words: Every word in your query (in any order) must be present in a database record to obtain a match.
    3. Any words: Any one of the words in your query (in any order) must be present in a database record to obtain a match.
    4. Contains: Words or parts of words are acceptable in your query text. The search will add a wild card character to both ends of your text to look for partial matches.
  2. Search query: Enter a search query into the search box (replacing the "Enter one or more required words"). Except for the 'Contains' search option below, a search will look for matches between individual words in your query and words in our virus name database. Your query can consist of one or more words separated by blank space (spaces or tabs). A "word" can consist of any combination of letters or numbers.
  3. Results
    1. Hit (result) tabs
      1. Hits to current ICTV taxa (number of hits): These results represent the database hits obtained from your query that could be linked to a current ICTV taxon (usually species). Multiple hits are possible if your query matched multiple different ICTV taxa.
      2. Hits to abolished ICTV taxa (number of hits): From one taxonomy release to another, ICTV taxa may be renamed, moved, promoted to a higher rank, merged with other taxa or split into multiple taxa. In addition, taxa can be abolished if new data no longer supports the existence of a particular taxon. This tab provides the results of hits to your query that could not be linked to a current ICTV taxon, but could be linked to a taxon that had been abolished.
      3. Hits with no ICTV results (number of hits): These results represent query hits to database records that could not be reliably linked to a current (or abolished) ICTV taxon. This is usually the case for hits to records in the NCBI database that do not have a clear path in their taxonomic lineage to an identifiable ICTV taxon (past or present).
    2. Table columns
      1. Current ICTV Taxonomy: The name of the official ICTV taxon into which the virus represented in your search results is most likely classified. Names are linked to a taxon information page that includes the complete history of the taxon (renames, higher rank classification, moves, promotions, merges, and splits).
      2. Matching Name: The virus or taxon or other name identified by a match to your query that is present in one of the search database records (see "Search Databases" below"). Names are linked to the database record containing the match.
      3. Source (Name type): The database containing the record that matched your query.
        1. Name type: The type of database record identified by the match to your query. These are database specific. (See below.)
      4. Intermediate taxon: The taxonomic identification provided by the source database for the name matched by your query. This may be different from the current ICTV taxon since it may refer to an old, deprecated taxon name. The application will use this intermediate name to lookup the corresponding (current) taxon name. Links are to the database record that provided the name.

Search Databases

  1. ICTV MSL: The Master Species List. The MSL provides the official current (or past) ICTV virus taxonomy.
    1. Name types: taxon name
  2. ICTV VMR: The Virus Metadata Resource. The VMR provides a list of exemplar viruses (virus isolates) for each virus species. Sequence accession numbers, genome information, and host source are also provided for each exemplar isolate.
    1. Name types: Virus name, Virus name abbreviation, Virus isolate designation, Virus GENBANK accession
  3. NCBI: The NCBI database of virus sequences containing virus isolate names, associated name synonyms, and taxonomic links.
    1. Name types: acronym, authority, common name, equivalent name, GenBank acronym, GenBank common name, includes, in part, scientific name, synonym.

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