Picornaviruses

A picornavirus is a virus belonging to the family Picornaviridae. Picornaviruses are non-enveloped, positive-stranded RNA viruses with an icosahedral capsid. The genome RNA is unusual because it has a protein on the 5' end that is used as a primer for transcription by RNA polymerase. The name is derived from pico, meaning small, and RNA, referring to the ribonucleic acid genome, so "picornavirus" literally means small RNA virus.