Advancing Research of Anelloviruses, Second Edition

Dear Colleagues,

Following the success of the Special Issue “Advancing Research of Anelloviruses” (see here), we are editing a second edition of this very popular topic and accepting new submissions.

Anelloviruses (AVs) are a vast group of agents discovered in recent years that may infect humans and various animal species. The first indication of their existence was in 1997, when Japanese scientists, using representational difference analysis for examining the blood of patients with cryptogenetic post-transfusion hepatitis, detected a novel virus with a particularly small genome formed by a circular single-stranded DNA of negative polarity. This new virus was named TT virus (TTV) after the initials of the first patient in whom it was identified, but its extended name was changed in 2004 to Torquetenovirus (from the Latin words torques and tenuis, meaning necklace and thin, respectively) to maintain the original acronym and conform to the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses rule that no official virus designation should be derived from people’s names. The discovery of TTV soon opened a Pandora’s box of new viruses. In fact, it was followed, in the year 2000 by the detection in diseased and healthy individuals of numerous related, previously unrecognized viruses with genome properties clearly similar to those of TTV, although often very genetically divergent from it. Furthermore, PCR testing of some blood donors for TTV produced shorter amplicons than expected if the virus amplified was truly TTV, and further characterization revealed the existence of additional viruses also clearly related to TTV but with a smaller genome, namely Torquetenominivirus (TTMV) and Torquetenomidivirus (TTMVD). Since 2009, all these viruses have been classified in the newly established family Anelloviridae (from anellus, Latin for "ring," to indicate the circular genome).

Despite the rapid accumulation of knowledge on TTV and related AVs, many fundamental aspects of their infection remain unresolved. Although AVs have been discovered to be extremely common, with abundant viral DNA detectable in the plasma of 80% or more of the general population worldwide, their significance for human health remains unknown. It has been proposed that AVs should be considered completely nonpathogenic, and the recent evidence that they represent the most abundant members of the human virome speaks in favor of this hypothesis. However, at this time, it seems wiser to consider AV an "orphan of disease", similar to what has previously been performed for many other viruses that, many years after their discovery, were found to produce significant pathologies.

Prof. Dr. Fabrizio Maggi
Dr. Pietro Giorgio Spezia
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Viruses is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• TTV
• TTMV
• TTMDV
• virome
• viral species
• immune system
• orphan virus

• Advancing Research of Anelloviruses in Viruses (11 articles)