African swine fever virus (ASFV) is a large,
double-stranded DNA virus and the sole member of the Asfarviridae family. ASFV infects domestic pigs, wild boars, warthogs, and bush pigs, as well as soft ticks (Ornithodoros erraticus), which likely act as a vector. The major target is swine monocyte-macrophage cells. The virus can cause high
fever, haemorrhagic lesions,
cyanosis,
anorexia, and even fatalities in domestic pigs. Currently, there is no
vaccine and effective disease control strategies against its spread are culling infected pigs and maintaining high biosecurity standards.
African swine fever (ASF) spread to Europe from Africa in the middle of the 20th century, and later also to South America and the Caribbean. Since then, ASF has spread more widely and thus is still a great challenge for swine breeding. The genome of ASFV ranges in length from about 170 to 193 kbp depending on the isolate and contains between 150 and 167 open reading frames (ORFs). The ASFV genome encodes 150 to 200
proteins, around 50 of them structural. The roles of
virus structural proteins in
viral infection have been described. These
proteins, such as pp220, pp62, p72, p54, p30, and CD2v, serve as the major component of virus particles and have roles in attachment, entry, and replication. All studies on ASFV
proteins lay a good foundation upon which to clarify the
infection mechanism and develop
vaccines and diagnosis methods. In this paper, the roles of ASFV structural
proteins in
viral infection are reviewed.