''Avulavirinae'' is a subfamily of
virus
A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living Cell (biology), cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Viruses are ...
es in the family ''
Paramyxoviridae
''Paramyxoviridae'' (from Ancient Greek, Greek ''para-'' “by the side of” and ''myxa'' “mucus”) is a family of negative-strand RNA viruses in the order ''Mononegavirales''. Vertebrates serve as natural hosts. Diseases associated with this ...
''.
Members of the subfamily are collectively known as avulaviruses. All members of the subfamily primarily infect birds. ''Avulavirinae'' was previously recognized as the genus ''Avulavirus'' before being elevated to a subfamily. The term ''avula'' comes from "avian rubula", distinguishing it from rubulaviruses of the subfamily ''
Rubulavirinae'' due to avulaviruses only infecting birds and translating protein V from an edited RNA transcript. The most notable avulavirus is the
Newcastle disease virus
Newcastle usually refers to:
*Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom
*Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom
*Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area ...
, a strain of ''Orthoavulavirus javaense''.
Characteristics
Like all Paramyxoviruses, avulaviruses are
enveloped negative-strand RNA virus
Negative-strand RNA viruses (−ssRNA viruses) are a group of related viruses that have Sense (molecular biology), negative-sense, single-stranded genomes made of ribonucleic acid (RNA). They have genomes that act as complementary strands from w ...
es.
Avulaviruses have a hemagglutinin-neuraminidase attachment protein and do not produce a non-structural protein C. Avulaviruses can be separated into distinct serotypes using
hemagglutination assay
The hemagglutination assay or haemagglutination assay (HA) and the hemagglutination inhibition assay (HI or HAI) were developed in 1941–42 by American virologist George Hirst as methods for quantifying the relative concentration of viruses, bac ...
and neuraminidase assay. All avulaviruses hemagglutinate chicken RBCs except for ''avian metaavulavirus 5'' which does not hemagglutinate RBCs from any species. ''Avian metaavulavirus 6'' is unique to the presence of the SH gene between the F and HN genes. ''Avian metaavulavirus 11'' has the longest genome among the APMVs.
Taxonomy
Subfamily: ''Avulavirinae''
:Genus: ''
Metaavulavirus'', which contains 14 species
:Genus: ''
Orthoavulavirus'', which contains 11 species
:Genus: ''
Paraavulavirus'', which contains three species
Prior to the subfamily being elevated from genus, members of the genus were known as ''Avian paramyxovirus'', then later as ''Avian avulavirus'', followed by numbers 1 to 19, which designated the species number. These numbers, along with the 20th and 21st members of the subfamily, are now dispersed across the three genera. Prior to 2023, each species was named ''Avian'' followed by the name of its genus and its individual number, for example ''Avian orthoavulavirus 1''. In 2023, the species were given binomial names. ''Avian orthoavulavirus 1'', for example, was renamed to ''Orthoavulavirus javaense''.
See also
* ''
Avian metaavulavirus 2''
References
Sources
*
*
External links
ICTV Report: ''Paramyxoviridae''*
*
{{Authority control
Avulaviruses
Mononegavirales
Paramyxoviridae
Virus genera