Members of the family Plectroviridae produce particles that are non-enveloped rigid rods (70-280×10-16 nm). The supercoiled, circular, single-stranded DNA genome of about 4.5-8.3 kb, encodes 4-13 proteins. Viruses of this family infect cell wall-less bacteria, adsorbing to the bacterial surface, replicating their DNA by a rolling-circle mechanism or transposition, and releasing progeny from cells by extrusion, without killing the host. This is a summary of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) Report on the family Plectroviridae which is available at ictv.global/report/plectroviridae.
Keywords: ICTV; Plectroviridae; taxonomy.