Taxonomy of plant virus and role of the ICTV database

The International Committee for Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), which was formed over 30 years ago, aims to develop a single, universal taxonomic scheme for all viruses or, in other words, "the classification of viruses and the assignment of names to taxa". Plant Virus taxonomy is in charge of Plant Virus Subcommittee, a substructure of the ICTV. The ICTV has been most successfully pursuing that aim and its mammoth 'Seventh Report' records details of the names it has collated and approved, and of the classification, it has devised. The current 7th ICTV report published in 2000 contains plant viruses of 951 species in 79 genera in 17 families, though 24 of the 79 genera are floating genera, that is, they are not included in any established families. Proposed name of new or existing viruses are vote for the accepted taxonomic proposals by ICTV Executive Committee meeting. The approved results have been published as the ICTV reports providing standard names and taxa of viruses all over the world. A number of new plant viruses have been identified or reclassified in the genus or species level, and new genera and families have been proposed.(중략)