| JOURNAL OF GENERAL VIROLOGY  |
ICTV VIRUS TAXONOMY PROFILE Gatherer et al., Journal of General Virology 2021;102:001673 DOI 10.1099/jgv.0.001673 |
|
ICTV Virus Taxonomy Profile: Herpesviridae 2021
Derek Gatherer1, Daniel P. Depledge2, Carol A. Hartley3, Moriah L. Szpara4, Paola K. Vaz3, Mária Benkő5, Curtis R. Brandt6, Neil A. Bryant7, Akbar Dastjerdi8, Andor Doszpoly5, Ursula A. Gompels9, Naoki Inoue10, Keith W. Jarosinski11, Rajeev Kaul12, Vincent Lacoste13, Peter Norberg14, Francesco C. Origgi15, Richard J. Orton16, Philip E. Pellett17, D. Scott Schmid18, Stephen J. Spatz19, James P. Stewart20, Jakob Trimpert21, Thomas B. Waltzek22, Andrew J. Davison16,* and ICTV Report Consortium
| Abstract
Members of the family Herpesviridae have enveloped, spherical virions with characteristic complex structures consisting of symmetrical and non-symmetrical components. The linear, double-stranded DNA genomes of 125–241 kbp contain 70–170 genes, of which 43 have been inherited from an ancestral herpesvirus. In general, herpesviruses have coevolved with and are highly adapted to their hosts, which comprise many mammalian, avian and reptilian species. Following primary infection, they are able to establish lifelong latent infection, during which there is limited viral gene expression. Severe disease is usually observed only in the foetus, the very young, the immunocompromised or following infection of an alternative host. This is a summary of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) Report on the family Herpesviridae, which is available at ictv.global/report/herpesviridae. |
Table 1. Characteristics of members of the family Herpesviridae Example:
herpes simplex virus type 1 (JN555585), species Human alphaherpesvirus 1, genus Simplexvirus, subfamily Alphaherpesvirinae
Virion
Spherical (150–200 nm) particles with condensed DNA core, icosahedral capsid, tegument and a lipid envelope containing glycoproteins
Genome
125–241 kbp of linear dsDNA
Replication
Infection has lytic and latent phases; transcription occurs in the nucleus by a kinetic cascade; DNA replicates by a rolling-circle mechanism to generate concatemers, from which genomes are cleaved and packaged into preformed capsids; virions mature in the cytoplasm
Translation
Occurs from capped, polyadenylated mRNAs, some of which are spliced
Host range
Mammals, birds and reptiles
Taxonomy
Realm Duplodnaviria, kingdom Heunggongvirae, phylum Peploviricota, class Herviviricetes, order Herpesvirales; 3 subfamilies, >10 genera and >100 species
icosahedron containing 162 capsomers arranged as 150 hexons, 11 pentons and one portal. The tegument consists of inner and outer layers. The lipid envelope contains integral viral glycoproteins forming a network of spikes.
VIRION Virions consist of a core, capsid, tegument and envelope (Table 1, Fig. 1) [1]. The core comprises the viral genome packaged into the capsid as a linear, dsDNA molecule. The capsid is a T=16
Received 11 August 2021; Accepted 14 August 2021; Published 27 October 2021 Author affiliations: 1Lancaster University, UK; 2NYU School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA; 3The University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; 4 Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, USA; 5Veterinary Medical Research Institute, Eötvös Loránd Research Network, Budapest, Hungary; 6 University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA; 7University of Cambridge, UK; 8Animal and Plant Health Agency-Weybridge, Addlestone, Surrey, UK; 9Virokine Therapeutics, London BioScience Innovation Centre, Royal Veterinary College, London, UK; 10Gifu Pharmaceutical University, Gifu, Japan; 11University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA; 12University of Delhi South Campus, New Delhi, India; 13Institut Pasteur du Laos, Vientiane, Lao PDR, Laos; 14University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden; 15University of Bern, Switzerland; 16University of Glasgow, UK; 17Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan, USA; 18Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA; 19US National Poultry Research Center, Athens, Georgia, USA; 20University of Liverpool, UK; 21Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; 22University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.
- Correspondence: Andrew J. Davison, andrew.davison@glasgow.ac.uk
Keywords: Herpesviridae; ICTV Report; taxonomy. 001673 © 2021 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License
1
