title: Mesoniviridae: a proposed new family in the order Nidovirales formed by a single species of mosquito-borne viruses.
abstract: Recently, two independent surveillance studies in Côte d'Ivoire and Vietnam, respectively, led to the discovery of two mosquito-borne viruses, Cavally virus and Nam Dinh virus, with genome and proteome properties typical for viruses of the order Nidovirales. Using a state-of-the-art approach, we show that the two insect nidoviruses are (i) sufficiently different from other nidoviruses to represent a new virus family, and (ii) related to each other closely enough to be placed in the same virus species. We propose to name this new family Mesoniviridae. Meso is derived from the Greek word "mesos" (in English "in the middle") and refers to the distinctive genome size of these insect nidoviruses, which is intermediate between that of the families Arteriviridae and Coronaviridae, while ni is an abbreviation for "nido". A taxonomic proposal to establish the new family Mesoniviridae, genus Alphamesonivirus, and species Alphamesonivirus 1 has been approved for consideration by the Executive Committee of the ICTV.
authors.affiliation: Molecular Virology Laboratory, Department of Medical Microbiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Albinusdreef 2, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lauber
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ziebuhr
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Junglen
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Drosten
authors.forename: Florian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zirkel
authors.forename: Phan Thi
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Nga
authors.forename: Kouichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Morita
authors.forename: Eric J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Snijder
authors.forename: Alexander E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Gorbalenya
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D007560:Cote d'Ivoire; D009033:Culicidae / Q000821:virology*; D028381:Nidovirales / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D016366:Open Reading Frames; D010802:Phylogeny; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis* / Q000235:genetics; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA; D014744:Vietnam
chemical_list: D012367:RNA, Viral