Assembly of Rotaviruses

Abstract

The Reoviridae family includes three genera: Reoviruses, Rotaviruses, and Orbiviruses 0oklik, 1983). These are non-enveloped viruses which have an inner capsid and an outer protein shell with icosahedral symmetry. The viruses have segmented genomes of double-stranded RNA. Although mature infectious virions of Reoviridae are not enveloped, recent evidence has shown that an enveloped particle is an intermediate in the formation of Rotavirus virions (Estes et al., 1983). For this reason, the assembly of Rotaviruses has been included in this book. Assembly of Reoviruses will not be considered, since these viruses assemble completely in the cytoplasm and do not have an intermediate budding form. Orbiviruses do have enveloped forms in infected cells, but relatively little is known about their formation (Verwoerd et al., 1979).