Morphological and genomic characterization of two reoviruses (P and W2) pathogenic for marine crustaceans; do they constitute a novel genus of the Reoviridae family?

P and W2 viruses are pathogenic in two crustaceans of the Mediterranean Sea, Macropipus depurator and Carcinus mediterraneus, respectively. Investigation of virus, virus density and genome structure leads us to propose their classification in a genus similar to aquareovirus of the Reoviridae family. They differ from aquareoviruses by the number of dsRNA segments forming the genome (12 instead of 11), their electrophoretic pattern in PAGE (1/5/6 instead of 3/3/5), and the absence of virus replication in fish cell lines.