Genetic content and evolution of adenoviruses

This review provides an update of the genetic content, phylogeny and evolution of the family Adenoviridae. An appraisal of the condition of adenovirus genomics highlights the need to ensure that public sequence information is interpreted accurately. To this end, all complete genome sequences available have been reannotated. Adenoviruses fall into four recognized genera, plus possibly a fifth, which have apparently evolved with their vertebrate hosts, but have also engaged in a number of interspecies transmission events. Genes inherited by all modern adenoviruses from their common ancestor are located centrally in the genome and are involved in replication and packaging of viral DNA and formation and structure of the virion. Additional niche-specific genes have accumulated in each lineage, mostly near the genome termini. Capture and duplication of genes in the setting of a 'leader-exon structure', which results from widespread use of splicing, appear to have been central to adenovirus evolution. The antiquity of the pre-vertebrate lineages that ultimately gave rise to the Adenoviridae is illustrated by morphological similarities between adenoviruses and bacteriophages, and by use of a protein-primed DNA replication strategy by adenoviruses, certain bacteria and bacteriophages, and linear plasmids of fungi and plants.