title: Classification of papillomaviruses (PVs) based on 189 PV types and proposal of taxonomic amendments.
abstract: We present an expansion of the classification of the family Papillomaviridae, which now contains 29 genera formed by 189 papillomavirus (PV) types isolated from humans (120 types), non-human mammals, birds and reptiles (64, 3 and 2 types, respectively). To accommodate the number of PV genera exceeding the Greek alphabet, the prefix "dyo" is used, continuing after the Omega-PVs with Dyodelta-PVs. The current set of human PVs is contained within five genera, whereas mammalian, avian and reptile PVs are contained within 20, 3 and 1 genera, respectively. We propose standardizations to the names of a number of animal PVs. As prerequisite for a coherent nomenclature of animal PVs, we propose founding a reference center for animal PVs. We discuss that based on emerging species concepts derived from genome sequences, PV types could be promoted to the taxonomic level of species, but we do not recommend implementing this change at the current time.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and Program of Public Health, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA. hbernard@uci.edu <hbernard@uci.edu>
authors.forename: Hans-Ulrich
authors.initials: HU
authors.lastname: Bernard
authors.forename: Robert D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Burk
authors.forename: Zigui
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Koenraad
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: van Doorslaer
authors.forename: Harald
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: zur Hausen
authors.forename: Ethel-Michele
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: de Villiers
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D027383:Papillomaviridae / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics; D030361:Papillomavirus Infections / Q000662:veterinary / Q000821:virology*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004279:DNA, Viral