Unsegmented Double-Stranded (ds)RNA viruses with two open reading frames, known as totivirus-like viruses, were recently identified and tentatively placed in the Totiviridae family. These totivirus-like viruses, in contrast to yeast and protozoan Totiviridae viruses, infect a wide range of metazoan hosts and are currently having a significant negative impact on fisheries and agriculture. We created the first infectious full-length cDNA clone of the totivirus-like Omono River virus (OmRV), and we used an RNAtranscript-based technique to create infectious particles. The infectious-cloning OmRV particles have shown substantial cytopathic effects, infectivity, and similar morphology to the parent wild-type particles from nature. The established approach is one of the few systems for producing a non-segmented dsRNA viral cDNA clone that have been published thus far.
