Family: Phasmaviridae

Genus: Wuhivirus

Distinguishing features

Wǔhàn insect virus 2 (WhIV2) is the only classified wuhivirus. WhIV2 is associated with hemipteran insects (Li et al., 2015).

Virion

Virions are unknown.

Nucleic acid

Wuhiviruses have tri-segmented negative-sense RNA genomes of about 15.5 kb (small [S] segment: 1.7 kb; medium [M] segment: 6.5 kb; large [L] segment: 7.2 kb) (Li et al., 2015).

Proteins

Based on sequence data, wuhiviruses likely express three structural proteins: nucleoprotein (N), glycoprotein precursor (GPC), and large protein (L) (Li et al., 2015).

Genome organization and replication

The S segment encodes N, the M segment encodes GPC, and the L segment encodes L protein (Li et al., 2015) (Figure 1 Wuhivirus). Wuhivirus genomic segments are expected, by analogy with other bunyaviricetes, to assume circular ribonucleoprotein complexes within the virion via non-covalent binding of complementary and conserved 3′- and 5′-terminal sequences.

Figure 1 Wuhivirus. Schematic representation of wuhivirus genome organization. L: gene encoding L protein; GPC, gene encoding GPC; N: gene encoding N protein.

Biology

Wuhiviruses are associated with mealy plum aphids (hemipteran Hyalopterus pruni (Geoffroy, 1762)) in China (Li et al., 2015). Replication-competent wuhivirus isolates have not yet been obtained, and hence wuhivirus biology remains to be elucidated.

Species demarcation criteria

Not applicable as the genus includes only a single species.