The poxvirus family uniquely contains both non-enveloped particles (mature virions), and enveloped particles (extracellular virions). The structure of the virions is consistent with that of others in the poxvirus family: they are composed of a nucleocapsid, core envelope, lateral body, and an extracellular envelope. Like other poxviruses, MCV is a DNA virus that replicates in the cytoplasm instead of the nucleus. Because of this, the virus must bring all necessary enzymes for replication with it or encode the enzymes in its genome.