ICTV Virus Taxonomy Profile: Peribunyaviridae

Abstract

Peribunyaviruses are enveloped and possess three distinct, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA segments comprising 11.2-12.5 kb in total. The family includes globally distributed viruses in the genera Orthobunyavirus, Herbevirus, Pacuvirus and Shangavirus. Most viruses are maintained in geographically-restricted vertebrate-arthropod transmission cycles that can include transovarial transmission from arthropod dam to offspring. Others are arthropod-specific. Arthropods can be persistently infected. Human infection occurs through blood feeding by an infected vector arthropod. Infections can result in a diversity of human and veterinary clinical outcomes in a strain-specific manner. Segment reassortment is evident between some peribunyaviruses. This is a summary of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) Report on the taxonomy of the family Peribunyaviridae, which is available at ictv.global/report/peribunyaviridae.

Keywords: Herbevirus; ICTV Report; Orthobunyavirus; Pacuvirus; Peribunyaviridae; Shangavirus; bunyavirus; taxonomy.

Fig. 1.

Peribunyavirus virion structure. (a) representation of a virion in cross-section. The surface spikes comprise the Gn and Gc glycoproteins. The helical nucleocapsids are circular and comprise one each of the unique ssRNA segments (L, large; M, medium; S, small) encapsidated by N protein and associated with the L protein. (b) negative-stained transmission electron microscopy photograph of California encephalitis virus virions (image: CDC/Drs Frederick Murphy and Erskine Palmer).

Fig. 2.

Coding strategy of Bunyamwera virus. Translation of NSs protein is initiated at an alternative start codon. The Gn, NSm and Gc proteins are generated by co-translational cleavage of M polyprotein.