''Clavaviridae'' is a family of double-stranded viruses that infect

archaea Archaea ( ) is a Domain (biology), domain of organisms. Traditionally, Archaea only included its Prokaryote, prokaryotic members, but this has since been found to be paraphyletic, as eukaryotes are known to have evolved from archaea. Even thou ...

. This family was first described by the team led by D. Prangishvili in 2010. There is one genus in this family (''Clavavirus''). Within this genus, a single species has been described to date: Aeropyrum pernix bacilliform virus 1 (APBV1, ''Clavavirus yamagawaense''). The name is derived from the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

word ''clava'', meaning cudgel, and referring to the thick, stick-like nature of the virus.

Virology

The virons are bacilliform in shape and 143 nanometers (nm) in length and 15.8 nm in diameter. One end is pointed and the other is rounded. The structure of the APBV1 virion has been solved by cryo-electron microscopy to near-atomic resolution, revealing how the helical particle is built from an alpha-helical major

capsid A capsid is the protein shell of a virus, enclosing its genetic material. It consists of several oligomeric (repeating) structural subunits made of protein called protomers. The observable 3-dimensional morphological subunits, which may or m ...

protein with a unique structural fold. Virions are highly thermostable and remain infectious after incubation at 100 °C for 3 hours. ODD

The genome is a circular double-stranded DNA molecule of 5.3 kb. It does not integrate into the host genome. The genome contains 14 open reading frames, none of which share similarity with sequences in public databases. Infection with this virus does not cause host cell lysis.

References

External links

ICTV Report: ''Clavaviridae''

ViralZone: ''Clavaviridae''
Double-stranded DNA viruses Virus families {{virus-stub