Ebola virus is a highly pathogenic filovirus causing severe hemorrhagic fever with high mortality rates. It assembles heterogenous, filamentous, enveloped virus particles containing a negative-sense, single-stranded RNA genome packaged within a helical nucleocapsid (NC).
Viruses are further classified into families and genera based on three structural considerations: 1) the type and size of their nucleic acid, 2) the size and shape of the capsid, and 3) whether they have a lipid envelope surrounding the nucleocapsid (the capsid enclosed nucleic acid).