Multipartite is a class 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 ...

that have segmented nucleic acid genomes, with each segment of the genome enclosed in a separate viral particle. Only a few

ssDNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...

viruses have multipartite genomes, but a many more RNA viruses have multipartite genomes. An advantage of multipartite genome is its ability to synthesize multiple

mRNA In molecular biology, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) is a single-stranded molecule of RNA that corresponds to the genetic sequence of a gene, and is read by a ribosome in the process of Protein biosynthesis, synthesizing a protein. mRNA is ...

strands to avoid the cellular constraint of monocistronicity. Until recently, it was not known how multipartite viruses could efficiently infect a single cell with all the segments that comprise their genome simultaneously, which was thought to be necessary for replication. It has since been shown that the segments typically do not infect the same cell. Rather, segments accumulate in different cells and the viral system functions through exchange of material between cells. Thus, multipartite viruses are not localized in space but rather more like a distributed network of chemical reactions. In this sense, they are an even further departure from other organisms than monopartite viruses. Multipartite viruses represent 35-40% of the viral genera and families that have been described in plants and fungi, but otherwise appear to be rare.

References

Genomics {{virus-stub

See also

References