Euphresco Project VirusCollect – Fulfilling the Need for a Common Collection of Plant Viruses and Viroids for Reference

The availability and accessibility of suitably characterized plant virus and viroid isolates for reference is vital for research and diagnostic laboratories. To ensure the long‐term availability of isolates and reference materials, there is a need for international collaboration. The Euphresco (European Plant Health Research Coordination) project VirusCollect aimed to establish a platform to link collections of viruses and viroids maintained by individual institutions via Q‐bank (http://www.q-bank.eu/), a database on plant pests and diseases. Within the VirusCollect project, standard operating procedures were developed and implemented by the participating laboratories to guarantee the quality of isolates and data. In addition, over 135 virus and viroid isolates of phytosanitary and/or economic importance were added to Q‐bank, which now provides links to over 500 virus isolates of almost 100 species, in addition to basic information on many more plant viruses. VirusCollect has enabled the first step in collaboration between curators and standardization of maintenance of virus collections. The project established the basis for improving the quality of individual collections and the layout of Q‐bank as a platform to share data and information. The follow‐up project, VirusCollect II, enables further international collaboration to ensure future access to reliable collections of plant viruses and viroids.