The Global Virome,
in One Network (VIRION)
The Global Virome, in One Network (VIRION) is an open atlas of the vertebrate virome. It was built by an interdisciplinary team of virologists, ecologists, and data scientists.
VIRION is the most comprehensive database of its kind, drawing data from scientific literature and online databases, and is updated automatically with new data. Today, it includes over 2.8 million interactions that capture roughly 25% of known mammal diversity, 10% of bird diversity, and 6% of total vertebrate diversity. Unlike many other databases, VIRION has undergone a full taxonomic reconciliaton process, using a backbone provided by NCBI, with a total of 3,767 valid vertebrate host species and 9,000 valid viruses, of which 1,667 are ICTV-ratified valid names.
Some things you should know before you get started:
This is a working alpha; please don’t publish new science with it quite yet! (Still some bugs)
A preprint is coming soon, which explains the data synthesis process and can be cited in original research.
VIRION includes a mix of predicted and observed interactions. As such, we ask that you do not reproduce it in other databases of biotic interactions.
You should not use VIRION without special attention to the mix of data types, including metagenomic samples, unresolved lower taxonomy, and other potentially-unfamiliar features.