Cauliflower mosaic virus

Cauliflower mosaic virus
Electron micrograph of CaMV virions
Virus classification
Group:	Group VII (dsDNA-RT)
Order:	Unassigned
Family:	Caulimoviridae
Genus:	Caulimovirus
Species:	Cauliflower mosaic virus

Cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) is a member of the genus Caulimovirus, one of the six genera in the Caulimoviridae family, which are pararetroviruses that infect plants. Pararetroviruses replicate through reverse transcription just like retroviruses, but the viral particles contain DNA instead of RNA.

Cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) is the type species of the family Caulimoviridae. This family is grouped together with Hepadnaviruses into the Pararetrovirus group due to its mode of replication via reverse transcription of a pre-genomic RNA intermediate.

CaMV infects mostly plants of the Brassicaceae family (such as cauliflower and turnip) but some CaMV strains (D4 and W260) are also able to infect Solanaceae species of the genera Datura and Nicotiana. CaMV induces a variety of systemic symptoms such as mosaic, necrotic lesions on leaf surfaces, stunted growth, and deformation of the overall plant structure. The symptoms exhibited vary depending on the viral strain, host ecotype, and environmental conditions.

CaMV is transmitted in a non-circulatory manner by aphid species such as Myzus persicae. Once introduced within a plant host cell, virions migrate to the nuclear envelope of the plant cell.

The CaMV particle is an icosahedron with a diameter of 52 nm built from 420 capsid protein (CP) subunits arranged with a triangulation T = 7, which surrounds a solvent-filled central cavity.

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