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PubMed · 1450769

What is a virus?

M H Van Regenmortel
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Abstract

The earlier reluctance of some plant virologists to use the term "virus species" has been overcome and the species has now been accepted as the basic unit in virus classification. A virus species is a polythetic class of viruses that constitutes a replicating lineage and occupies a particular ecological niche. Because of the polythetic nature of virus species, there is no single property, such as a particular level of genome homology, that could be used as the sole criterion for delineating individual virus species.

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BibTeXRIS

M H Van Regenmortel. 1992. What is a virus?. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-6920-9_5

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