From crescent to mature virion: vaccinia virus assembly and maturation.

Vaccinia virus (VACV) has achieved unprecedented success as a live viral vaccine for smallpox which mitigated eradication of the disease. Vaccinia virus has a complex virion morphology and recent advances have been made to answer some of the key outstanding questions, in particular, the origin and biogenesis of the virion membrane, the transformation from immature virion (IV) to mature virus (MV), and the role of several novel genes, which were previously uncharacterized, but have now been shown to be essential for VACV virion formation. This new knowledge will undoubtedly contribute to the rational design of safe, immunogenic vaccine candidates, or effective antivirals in the future. This review endeavors to provide an update on our current knowledge of the VACV maturation processes with a specific focus on the initiation of VACV replication through to the formation of mature virions.