[JSV Virus Nomenclature Working Group Report 2024: Backgrounds, Tasks and Roles.]

Abstract

The virus nomenclature working group (VNWG) was launched to officially fix Japanese names of important viruses under the Japanese Society for Virology (JSV) in 2022. VNWG first determined the priority viruses for the society and called opinions from many experts and relevant scientific societies. Its finalized list, now publicized in the JSV official web page , includes plant viruses ⁄viroids occurring⁄occurred in Japan, algal and fungal viruses associated with Japan, pathogenic human and animal viruses. In principle, a sole Japanese name was assigned to each of these viruses, and shown under the corresponding taxonomical species in the Virus Metadata Resources (VMR_MSL39_v1) issued by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV). In this article, we also touched three marked modifications in recent virus taxonomy of the ICTV: 1) adoption of a binominal system into the virus species names, 2) development of higher ranks, such as realm and kingdom, of virus taxa, and 3) approval of virus species based only upon coding-complete genomic sequences without any biological data. Also introduced in this article are what background was behind the launching of VNWG, what VNWG discussed and what issues VNWG recognized. We hope that our attempts and efforts contribute to establish the "grammar of virology": virus nomenclature and taxonomy in Japanese communication.