ICTV Virus Taxonomy Profile: Caulimoviridae

Abstract

Caulimoviridae is a family of non-enveloped reverse-transcribing plant viruses with non-covalently closed circular dsDNA genomes of 7.1-9.8 kbp in the order Ortervirales. They infect a wide range of monocots and dicots. Some viruses cause economically important diseases of tropical and subtropical crops. Transmission occurs through insect vectors (aphids, mealybugs, leafhoppers, lace bugs) and grafting. Activation of infectious endogenous viral elements occurs in Musa balbisiana, Petunia hybrida and Nicotiana edwardsonii. However, most endogenous caulimovirids are not infectious. This is a summary of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) Report on the family Caulimoviridae, which is available at ictv.global/report/caulimoviridae.

Keywords: Caulimoviridae; ICTV Report; taxonomy.

Fig. 1.

Negative-contrast electron micrographs of virions of (a) cauliflower mosaic virus and (c) banana streak MY virus. (b) Tridimensional reconstruction of the cauliflower mosaic virus particle (images courtesy of Patrick Bron and Andrew D.W. Geering).

Fig. 2.

Caulimovirus genome linearised at the pregenomic RNA transcription start site (black arrow), numbered from the Met-tRNA primer binding site (black diamond). ORFs (light grey) include domains for the viral movement protein (VMP, blue), coat protein conserved C-terminus (CP, green), retropepsin (pepsin-like aspartic protease, AP, red), reverse transcriptase (RT, orange), RNase H1 (RH1, yellow), and translation transactivator (TA, black).