“Yaraviridae”: a proposed new family of viruses infecting Acanthamoeba castellanii

Abstract

Here, we propose the creation of the family “Yaraviridae”, a new taxon to classify a virus infecting Acanthamoeba castellanii cells. Recently, we described the discovery of a new virus infecting free-living amoebae, yaravirus, which has features that strongly differ from those of all other viruses of amoebae described to date. Yaravirus particles are about 80 nm in diameter and have a dsDNA genome of ~45 kbp containing 74 ORFs, most of which (>90%) have no homologs in current databases. Together, these data support the creation of a new species (“Yaravirus brasiliense”), a new viral genus (here proposed as “Yaravirus”), and a new viral family (here proposed as “Yaraviridae”) to classify yaravirus and other related viruses that may be described in the future. All of them are to be included into the existing realm Varidnaviria and the kingdom Bamfordvirae, due to the presence of a major capsid protein containing a double jelly-roll fold.