Tectivirus

Tectiviridae is classified as a class 1 virus under the Boltimore classification scheme.This family of viruses infects Gram-negative bacteria carrying drug resistance plasmids e.g. enterobacteria phage PRD1.Tectiviridae have no head-tail structure, but are capable of producing tail-like tubes of ~ 60 x 10 nm upon adsorption or after chloroform treatment. This family of viruses consist of capsids that have apical spikes extending ~20 nm and an unsual internal lipid envelope around the nucleoprotein.

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Structure

The capsid is nonenveloped and has a diameter of 63 nm icosahedron structure. The capsid shells are composed of two layers, inner and outer capsid. The inner capsid shell consist of a 5-6 nm flexible shell made from a lipoprotein vesicle whereas the outer capsid is made up of a smooth, rigid 3 nm thin protein shell. The genome forms a tightly packed coil and the viral genome encodes structural proteins. The virion Mr is ~ 66 x 106 and constitutes 14-15 % of the virion by weight and 15% lipids by weight. This family of viruses have a single molecule of linear double stranded DNA of 150, 000 nucleotide long and the genome is unsegmented. Carbohydrates not detected and no information on antigenic properties.

References:

ICTVdB - The Universal Virus Database ICTVdB Management (2006). 00.068. Tectiviridae. In: ICTVdB - The Universal Virus Database, version 3. Büchen-Osmond, C. (Ed), Columbia University, New York, USA

Virus Taxonomy: Eighth Report of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses H.V. Van Regenmortel, D.H.L. Bishop, M. H. Van Regenmortel, Claude M. Fauquet (Eds)

68.0.1. Tectivirus