Asfarviridae

species of virus

Asfarviridae is a family of viruses, the best-studied of which is African swine fever virus, which are double-stranded DNA viruses. A 2025 genomic-analysis study comparing many of the so-called “extended Asfarviridae” viruses (e.g. Faustovirus, Kaumoebavirus, Pacmanvirus, Abalone asfa‑like virus (AbALV) along with African swine fever virus) found that these lineages are so genetically divergent that they likely represent multiple distinct viral families rather than a single “extended Asfarviridae” group. This suggests that the diversity of giant dsDNA viruses related to ASFV is far greater tha

thumb|Negative staining of "Faustovirus ST1" purified suspension showing an icosahedral particle of 200 nm. Scale bar 100 nm. Faustovirus is a genus of giant virus which infects amoebae associated with humans. The virus was first isolated in 2015 and shown to be around 0.2 micrometers in diameter with a double stranded DNA genome of 466 kilobases predicted to encode 451 proteins. Although classified as a nucleocytoplasmic large DNA virus (NCLDV), faustoviruses share less than a quarter of their genes with other NCLDVs; however, ~46% are homologous to bacterial genes and the remainder