ABSTRACT
Initially, polyomaviruses had been grouped together with papillomaviruses into the family Papovaviridae due to similarities of both virus groups regarding virion morphology and genome composition. However, as noticeable differences between both virus groups in genome organization and biological properties became evident, a novel family Polyomaviridae with the genus Polyomavirus was created in 2000, in which all of the polyomavirus species have been placed (Hou et al., 2005).
