Family: Marnaviridae

Genus: Kusarnavirus

Distinguishing features

The member of the genus forms a separate clade from other members of the family upon phylogenetic analysis of RNA-directed RNA polymerase amino acid sequences. 

Virion

See discussion under family description. 

Genome organization and replication

The genome is di-cistronic (Figure 2 Marnaviridae). See discussion under family description. 

Biology

See discussion under family description. 

Species demarcation criteria

There is only one species in the genus. The phylogenetic relationship of one classified virus isolate and numerous unclassified virus isolates is shown in Figure 1 Kusarnavirus. 

Figure 1 Kusarnavirus.  Maximum likelihood tree of kusarnavirus RdRP amino sequences. The tree was produced using the JTT model with a gamma distribution of frequencies and invariant sites. Bootstrap values are shown where they were over 70%. Tips are labelled with filled circles for members of species; open circles represent unclassified viruses. Heterosigma akashiwo RNA virus (AY337486) was used as an outgroup. This phylogenetic tree and corresponding sequence alignment are available to download from the Resources page.

 Member species

The Member Species table enumerating important virus exemplars classified under each species of the genus is provided at the bottom of the page.

Related, unclassified viruses

Virus names and virus abbreviations are not official ICTV designations.