Phenuiviridae


Phenuiviridae is a virus family belonging to the order Bunyavirales established in 2016. Ruminants, camels, humans, and mosquitoes are the known hosts of members of this negative-sense single-stranded RNA virus family. Of the genera, Phlebovirus is the only genus that includes viruses that cause disease in humans.

Molecular biology

Members of Phenuiviridae are enveloped viruses with helical capsid morphology. Envelope glycoproteins of these viruses are distributed with icosahedral symmetry. Phenuiviridae is a negative single stranded RNA virus family. Its genome is segmented into three pieces: L segment, M segment, and S segment.
Some members of the family have ambisense gene encoding on the S segment. The M segment includes envelope glycoproteins encoded in a polyprotein that is cleaved by host proteases. Multiple different proteins can be encoded on the M segment due to leaky scanning by the ribosome.
RNA transcripts are capped through cap snatching, but not polyadenylated. Translation is terminated by a hairpin sequence at the end of each RNA transcript.

Taxonomy

The following genera are recognized: