Pleomorphic archaeal viruses: the family Pleolipoviridae is expanding by seven new species

Established in 2016, the family Pleolipoviridae comprises globally distributed archaeal viruses that produce pleomorphic particles. Pseudo-spherical enveloped virions of pleolipoviruses are membrane vesicles carrying a nucleic acid cargo. The cargo can be either a single-stranded or double-stranded DNA molecule, making this group the first family introduced in the 10 th Report on Virus Taxonomy including both single-stranded and double-stranded...