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Welcome to the home of Picornaviruses
hosted by The Pirbright Institute

The family Picornaviridae currently consists of 159 species grouped into 68 genera (as of March 2024). Sixty-six of the genera are grouped into five subfamilies.

At the end of April 2024, 158 species were renamed using a binomial nomenclature. These names will be updated on the website as soon as is possible. In the meantime, you can download an Excel file listing the old and new species names. Remember, virus common names have not changed and therefore names such as foot-and-mouth disease virus, hepatitis A virus and enterovirus C, may still be used if not specifying the species name.

The Picornaviridae pages have been updated to reflect the new taxonomy approved by the ICTV in March 2017 (Adams et al., 2017), February 2018 (King et al., 2018), February 2019 (Walker et al., 2019), March 2020 (Walker et al., 2020) and March 2021 (Walker et al., 2021). Thus the taxonomy is based on the ICTV 10^th Report Chapter - Picornaviridae (Zell et al., 2017) and the most recent ICTV Master Species List.

Full Classification of Picornaviruses:

Realm: Riboviria
Kingdom: Orthornavirae
Phylum: Pisuviricota
Class: Pisoniviricetes
Order: Picornavirales
Family: Picornaviridae

International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses Executive Committee. The new scope of virus taxonomy: partitioning the virosphere into 15 hierarchical ranks. Nat Microbiol. 2020 May;5(5):668-674. doi: 10.1038/s41564-020-0709-x. Epub 2020 Apr 27. PMID: 32341570; PMCID: PMC7186216.

 An important note on names and orthography:

• ICTV approved genera and species names are shown in italics, e.g. Hunnivirus A (except in menus and page titles because of technical difficulties).

• Proposed (i.e. a proposal has been submitted to the ICTV) genera and species names are enclosed within double quotation marks, e.g. "Acmevirus A".

• Candidate genera and species names are enclosed within single quotation marks, e.g. 'Acmevirus B'.

Alphabetical list of picornaviruses

References

Adams, M.J., Lefkowitz, E.J., King, A.M.Q., Harrach, B., Harrison, R.L., Knowles, N.J., Kropinski, A.M., Krupovic, M., Kuhn, J.H., Mushegian, A.R., Nibert, M., Sabanadzovic, S., Sanfaçon, H., Siddell, S.G., Simmonds, P., Varsani, A., Zerbini, FM., Gorbalenya, A.E., Davison, A.J. (2017). Changes to taxonomy and the International Code of Virus Classification and Nomenclature ratified by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (2017). Arch Virol. 2017 Apr 22. doi: 10.1007/s00705-017-3358-5. [Epub ahead of print]

King, A.M.Q., Lefkowitz, E.J., Mushegian, A.R., Adams, M.J., Dutilh, B.E., Gorbalenya, A.E., Harrach, B., Harrison, R.L., Junglen, S., Knowles, N.J., Kropinski, A.M., Krupovic, M., Kuhn, J.H., Nibert, M.L., Rubino, L., Sabanadzovic, S., Sanfaçon, H., Siddell, S.G., Simmonds, P., Varsani, A., Zerbini, F.M., Davison, A.J. (2018). Changes to taxonomy and the International Code of Virus Classification and Nomenclature ratified by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (2018). Arch Virol. 2018 May 12. doi: 10.1007/s00705-018-3847-1. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 29754305.

Walker PJ, Siddell SG, Lefkowitz EJ, Mushegian AR, Dempsey DM, Dutilh BE, Harrach B, Harrison RL, Hendrickson RC, Junglen S, Knowles NJ, Kropinski AM, Krupovic M, Kuhn JH, Nibert M, Rubino L, Sabanadzovic S, Simmonds P, Varsani A, Zerbini FM, Davison AJ. (2019). Changes to virus taxonomy and the International Code of Virus Classification and Nomenclature ratified by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (2019). Arch Virol. 2019 Jun 12. doi: 10.1007/s00705-019-04306-w. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 31187277.

Walker PJ, Siddell SG, Lefkowitz EJ, Mushegian AR, Adriaenssens EM, Dempsey DM, Dutilh BE, Harrach B, Harrison RL, Hendrickson RC, Junglen S, Knowles NJ, Kropinski AM, Krupovic M, Kuhn JH, Nibert M, Orton RJ, Rubino L, Sabanadzovic S, Simmonds P, Smith DB, Varsani A, Zerbini FM, Davison AJ. Changes to virus taxonomy and the Statutes ratified by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (2020). Arch Virol. 2020 Nov;165(11):2737-2748. doi: 10.1007/s00705-020-04752-x. PMID: 32816125.

Walker PJ, Siddell SG, Lefkowitz EJ, Mushegian AR, Adriaenssens EM, Alfenas-Zerbini P, Davison AJ, Dempsey DM, Dutilh BE, García ML, Harrach B, Harrison RL, Hendrickson RC, Junglen S, Knowles NJ, Krupovic M, Kuhn JH, Lambert AJ, Łobocka M, Nibert ML, Oksanen HM, Orton RJ, Robertson DL, Rubino L, Sabanadzovic S, Simmonds P, Smith DB, Suzuki N, Van Dooerslaer K, Vandamme AM, Varsani A, Zerbini FM. Changes to virus taxonomy and to the International Code of Virus Classification and Nomenclature ratified by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (2021). Arch Virol. 2021 Sep;166(9):2633-2648. doi: 10.1007/s00705-021-05156-1. PMID: 34231026.

Zell, R., Delwart, E., Gorbalenya, A.E., Hovi, T., King, A.M.Q., Knowles, N.J., Lindberg, A.M., Pallansch, M.A., Palmenberg, A.C., Reuter, G., Simmonds, P., Skern, T., Stanway, G., Yamashita, T. and ICTV Report Consortium. (2017). ICTV Virus Taxonomy Profile: Picornaviridae. J. Gen. Virol. 2017 Sep 8. doi: 10.1099/jgv.0.000911. [Epub ahead of print]