Keeping up with Virus Taxonomy: the latest ICTV profiles

Posted on November 25, 2024   by Clare Baker

For this edition of ‘Keeping up with Virus Taxonomy’, we thought we’d take a slightly different approach. Instead of bringing you a collection of families of viruses that infect fungi or are transmitted by insects, we’re going to make sure you’re up to date with profiles that are hot off the press. So, let’s take a look at the latest ICTV profiles published in Journal of General Virology.

Peribunyaviridae

This is a family of viruses that includes multiple genera that are distributed all over the world, they’ve been found on every continent except Antarctica. Most peribunyavirids are maintained in vertebrate-arthropod transmission cycles. Others are considered arthropod-specific viruses that can’t infect vertebrates or have only been associated with them. This family of viruses can infect humans, which occurs through blood feeding by arthropod vectors such as mosquitos and ticks. Infection by peribunyavirids could range from subclinical to fatal outcomes. Millennials may be familiar with one of the viruses in this family, Gryffinivirus, as it is named after the fictional character Godrick Gryffindor in the Harry Potter novels.

Turriviridae

Members of our next family infect archaea of the genera Sulfolobus and Saccharolobus, which thrive in extreme environments. Extreme environments, such as hot springs and areas with volcanic activity, are almost completely populated by archaeal viruses and their hosts. It therefore comes as no surprise that turriviruses have been collected from these environments. Viral infection by a virus belonging to the Turriviridae family, Sulfolobus turreted icosahedral virus 1, results in cell lysis and the virus genome does not integrate into that of the host.

Fusariviridae

Fusariviridae, which were named after the host of the first virus characterised by this family (Fusarium graminearum), are thought to be capsidless viruses as no virions can be purified on a sucrose density gradient. Fungi have been experimentally confirmed as hosts of members of the Fusariviridae family and no infectious form has been identified yet.

Hantaviridae

This is a family of negative-sense RNA viruses with genomes of about 10.5-14.6kb. Viruses belonging to the Hantaviridae family are maintained in and/or transmitted by fish reptiles and mammals. Only members of the genus Orthohantavirus within the family are known to cause disease. These viruses can infect humans causing a range of outcomes from mild to fatal diseases. Names of viruses within this family have a geographical link and examples include: asikkalaense — after Asikkala, Finland, bernense — after Bern, tatenalense — after historic Tatenale, England Switzerland and brugesense — after Bruges, Belgium.

Discoviridae

This is a family of RNA viruses that have been associated with fungi and stramenopiles, a group of eukaryotes that have tripartite hairs along one flagellum[1]. Not much is known about the family — methods of replication and translation are unknown, as well as the virion. The six classified discovirids have been detected all over the world, in Italy, Spain and China. The name Discoviridae doesn’t derive from ‘discovery’ as one might expect but was actually derived from the name of a software called DiscVir.