Member viruses have a wide host range, including vertebrates, invertebrates, plants, protists and fungi.

Rotaviruses, however, can cause severe diarrhea and intestinal distress in children, and lab studies in mice have implicated orthoreoviruses in the expression of coeliac disease in pre-disposed individuals.

[6] The virus can be readily detected in feces, and may also be recovered from pharyngeal or nasal secretions, urine, cerebrospinal fluid, and blood.

Despite the ease of finding reoviruses in clinical specimens, their role in human disease or treatment is still uncertain.

[1][8] Ultrastructure studies show that virion capsids are composed of two or three separate layers which depends on species type.

[9] The genomes of viruses in family Reoviridae contain 9–12 segments which are grouped into three categories corresponding to their size: L (large), M (medium) and S (small).

[8] Viruses in the family Reoviridae have genomes consisting of segmented, double-stranded RNA (dsRNA).

However, when two or more inactivated viruses were allowed to infect individual host cells MR occurred and viable progeny were produced.

[citation needed] The family Reoviridae is divided into two subfamilies[13] based on the presence of a "turret" protein on the inner capsid.

"[16] The family Reoviridae is divided into the following subfamilies and genera: Although reoviruses are mostly nonpathogenic in humans, these viruses have served as very productive experimental models for studies of viral pathogenesis.

[2] Reoviruses have been demonstrated to have oncolytic (cancer-killing) properties, encouraging the development of reovirus-based therapies for cancer treatment.