A proposal for naming adenovirus genome types, exemplified by adenovirus type 6.

A numerical code to denominate adenovirus (AV) genome types is proposed. Seven restriction endonuclease patterns are listed in alphabetical order (BamHI, BGlII, BstEII, EcoRI, HindIII, KpnI, SmaI); patterns deviating from those of the prototype (1) are named 2, 3 etc. depending on the chronological order of the respective isolates. Thus AV6/3:1231121 is a type 6 strain deviating from the prototype in three patterns, i.e. those of BglII, BstEII and KpnI. From 24 AV6 isolates, six were identical with the prototype, whereas the other strains represented 13 different genome types.