Family: Arenaviridae

Genus: Innmovirus

Distinguishing features

Hailar virus (HLRV) is the only known innmovirus. HLRV was detected in river sediment samples in China. Notably, innmoviruses have genomes consisting of three genomic segments and likely do not encode a homolog of the zinc-binding protein (Z) of mammarenaviruses and reptarenaviruses (Chen et al., 2021).

Virion

Virions are unknown.

Physicochemical and physical properties

Not reported

Nucleic acid

Innmoviruses have three negative-sense RNA segments. The termini of the RNAs contain inverted complementary sequences, likely encoding transcription and replication initiation signals (Shi et al., 2018).

Proteins

Based on sequence data only, innmoviruses likely express three structural proteins: nucleoprotein (NP), glycoprotein precursor (GPC), and large (L) protein (Chen et al., 2021).

Genome organization and replication

The small (S) RNA of innmoviruses encodes NP; the medium (M) RNA encodes the GPC; and the L RNA encodes the L protein, which contains an RNA-directed RNA polymerase (RdRP) domain (Figure 1.Innmovirus) (Chen et al., 2021).

Figure 1.Innmovirus. Schematic representation of innmovirus genome organization. The 5′- and 3′-ends of all segments are complementary at their termini, likely promoting the formation of circular ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complexes within the virion. GP, glycoprotein gene; NP, nucleoprotein gene.

Biology

The sole innmovirus was discovered by high-throughput sequencing of river sediment samples collected in China (Chen et al., 2021). No innmovirus isolate has been reported.

Species demarcation criteria

Not applicable (the genus includes only one species).

Related, unclassified viruses

Virus names and abbreviations are not official ICTV designations.