Common causes of childhood illness: human parechovirus

Human parechovirus is just one of the many causes of childhood infections. By examining the structure of the virus in complex with a protein from human cells, we can understand more about the first stages of the infection. In order to start an infection, the virus has to get into a host cell. It does this by attaching to human proteins on the outside of the cell, in this case big molecules called integrins. The integrins then drag the virus into the cell where it can start to replicate. See the article for more details
Seitsonen, J., Susi, P., Heikkilä, O., Sinkovits, R.S., Laurinmäki, P., Hyypiä, T., Butcher, S.J. (2010). Interaction of αVβ3 and αVβ6 integrins with Human parechovirus 1. J. Virol 84:8509 – 8519