ICTV Virus Taxonomy Profile: Arenaviridae

Abstract

Members of the family Arenaviridae produce enveloped virions containing genomes consisting of two or three single-stranded RNA segments totalling about 10.5 kb. Arenaviruses can infect mammals, including humans and other primates, snakes, and fish. This is a summary of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) Report on the family Arenaviridae, which is available at www.ictv.global/report/arenaviridae.

Keywords: Arenaviridae; ICTV Report; arenavirus; mammarenavirus; reptarenavirus; taxonomy.

Fig. 1.

(a) Electron micrograph of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus particles, showing dark internal inclusion bodies, budding from an infected cell. (b) Schematic illustration of a (mammalian) arenavirus particle. Shown is the spherical and enveloped (grey) particle that is spiked with glycoproteins (GP, gold) around a layer of zinc finger matrix proteins (Z, brown; missing in hartmaniviruses). The small and large ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complexes inside the particle consist of nucleoprotein (NP, blue) and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (L, green).

Fig. 2.

Schematic representation of the bisegmented genome organization of the mammalian arenavirus lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus. The 5′- and 3′-ends of both segments (S and L) are complementary at their termini, probably promoting the formation of circular RNP complexes within the virion. GPC, glycoprotein precursor; L, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase; NP, nucleoprotein; Z, zinc finger matrix protein. ORFs are separated by non-coding IGRs with predicted hairpin structures (not shown).