African swine fever virus (ASFV) is a large, intracytoplasmicallyreplicating DNA arbovirus and the sole member of the family Asfarviridae . It is the etiologic agent of a highly lethal hemorrhagic disease of domestic swine and therefore extensively studied to elucidate the structures, genes, and mechanisms affecting viral replication in the host, virus-host interactions, and viral virulence. Increasingly apparent is the complexity with which ASFV replicates and interacts with the host cell during infection. ASFV encodes novel genes