Structural insights into the classification of Mud Crab Reovirus

Abstract Cryo-electron microscopy was applied to analyze mud crab reovirus (MCRV), which causes ‘sleeping disease’ in mud crab, Scylla serrata , a marine species cultured in China. We present here the three dimensional structure of MCRV at 13.8 A resolution. The outer capsid shell is composed of 260 trimers with complete T = 13 icosahedral symmetry. A major difference between MCRV and previously reported aquareoviruses is that it lacks a pentameric turret structure. These results together with recently published molecular biological evidence ( Deng et al., 2012 ) indicate that, from a structural perspective, MCRV should be classified as a new member of the family Reoviridae .