The virion is non-enveloped with a flexuous and filamentous nucleocapsid, 680 to 900 nanometers (nm) long and is 11–20 nm in diameter.
The nucleocapsid contains ~2000 copies of the capsid protein.
The symmetry of the nucleocapsid is helical with a pitch of 3.4 nm.

The genome is a linear positive sense ssRNA ranging in size from 9000–12000 bases/nucleotides.
Most potyviruses have non-segmented genomes, though a number of species are bipartite.
The base composition is: 21–23.51–26% G; 23–30.15–44% A; 14.9–22.41–28% C; 15.6–24.41–30.9% U. 
In the species with a single genome, at the 5' end a protein is covalently linked (the Vg protein).
It encodes a single open reading frame (ORF) expressed as a 350kDa polyprotein precursor.
This is processed into seven smaller proteins: P1, helper component (HC), P3, cylindrical inclusion (CI), nuclear inclusion A (NIa), nuclear inclusion B (NIb), capsid protein (CP) and two small putative proteins known as 6K1 and 6K2.
The P3 cistron also encodes a second protein—P3N-PIPO—which is generated by a +2 frameshift.
The virion is non-enveloped with a flexuous and filamentous nucleocapsid, 680 to 900 nanometers (nm) long and is 11–20 nm in diameter. The nucleocapsid contains ~2000 copies of the capsid protein. The symmetry of the nucleocapsid is helical with a pitch of 3.4 nm.
The genome is a linear positive sense ssRNA ranging in size from 9000–12000 bases/nucleotides. Most potyviruses have non-segmented genomes, though a number of species are bipartite. The base composition is: 21–23.51–26% G; 23–30.15–44% A; 14.9–22.41–28% C; 15.6–24.41–30.9% U. 
In the species with a single genome, at the 5' end a protein is covalently linked (the Vg protein). It encodes a single open reading frame (ORF) expressed as a 350kDa polyprotein precursor. This is processed into seven smaller proteins: P1, helper component (HC), P3, cylindrical inclusion (CI), nuclear inclusion A (NIa), nuclear inclusion B (NIb), capsid protein (CP) and two small putative proteins known as 6K1 and 6K2. The P3 cistron also encodes a second protein—P3N-PIPO—which is generated by a +2 frameshift.
Potyvirus