''Aurivirus'' is a genus of

viruses A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1 ...

in the order ''

Herpesvirales The ''Herpesvirales'' is an order of dsDNA viruses (Baltimore group I) with animal hosts, characterised by a common morphology consisting of an icosahedral capsid enclosed in a glycoprotein-containing lipid envelope. Common infections in humans c ...

'', and one of only two genera the family ''

Malacoherpesviridae ''Malacoherpesviridae'' is a family of DNA viruses in the order ''Herpesvirales''. Molluscs serve as natural hosts, making members of this family the only known herpesviruses to infect invertebrates. There are currently only two species recognise ...

''. Haliotid molluscs serve as natural hosts. There is only one species described in this genus, ''Haliotid herpesvirus 1'' (AbHV-1), commonly known as abalone herpesvirus. A disease associated with this virus is acute ganglioneuritis.

Discovery

In 2005 there was an outbreak of acute ganglioneuritis in an Australian population of the edible

gastropod The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. T ...

mollusc Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...

, abalone (''

Haliotis laevigata ''Haliotis laevigata'', common name the smooth Australian abalone or greenlip abalone or whitened ear shell, is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Haliotidae, the abalones. Description The shell measures up to ...

'' and '' H. rubra''). Potential herpesvirus particles had also been identified previously in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

following mortalities in '' H. diversicolor''. Using

transmission electron microscopy Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a microscopy technique in which a beam of electrons is transmitted through a specimen to form an image. The specimen is most often an ultrathin section less than 100 nm thick or a suspension on a g ...

, herpes-like particles were observed in

ganglia A ganglion is a group of neuron cell bodies in the peripheral nervous system. In the somatic nervous system this includes dorsal root ganglia and trigeminal ganglia among a few others. In the autonomic nervous system there are both sympatheti ...

of affected abalone and purified

virion A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1 ...

s from

moribund Moribund refers to a literal or figurative state near death. Moribund may refer to: * ''Moribund'' (album), a 2006 album by the Norwegian black metal band Koldbrann * "Le Moribond", a song by Jacques Brel known in English as "Seasons in the Sun" ...

abalone nervous tissues were identified as resembling those of herpesviruses. A diagnostic PCR test was developed to detect the virus in 2010. The test detected viral DNA sequences in diseased abalone from separate geographical locations in Australia and in DNA isolated from a herpes-like virus found previously in Taiwan. Savin ''et al''. (2010) purified abalone virus particles and isolated and sequenced genomic DNA of ''Haliotid herpesvirus 1''.

Structure

''Haliotid herpesvirus 1'' is enveloped, with spherical to pleomorphic geometry, and T=16 symmetry. The diameter is around 150 nm. The genome is linear and non-segmented, around 212kb in length.

Life cycle

Viral replication is nuclear. DNA-templated transcription is the method of transcription. Haliotid molluscs serve as the natural hosts, including ''Haliotis diversicolor''.

References

External links

Viralzone: ''Aurivirus''

ICTV
{{Taxonbar, from=Q18813579 Malacoherpesviridae Virus genera