Family: Kolmioviridae

Genus: Daazvirus

Distinguishing features

Chinese fire belly newt virus 1 (CFBNV1; previously referred to as amHDV) is the only classified daazvirus. Daazviruses infect salamandrid amphibians (Chang et al., 2019).

Virion

Virions are unknown.

Nucleic acid

Daazviruses have non-segmented, covalently-closed, circular negative-sense RNA (cccRNA) genomes of about 1.7 kb with 53.8% GC content (Chang et al., 2019).

Proteins

Daazviruses are predicted to express one delta antigen (DAg)-like protein of 255 amino-acid residues (Chang et al., 2019).

Biology

CFBNV1 was discovered in Chinese fire belly newts (salamandrid Cynops orientalis (David, 1873)) sampled in China. Replication-competent daazvirus isolates have not yet been obtained, and hence daazvirus biology remains to be elucidated.

Species demarcation criteria

The genus currently only includes a single species.