Human herpesvirus-6 entry into host cells

Huamin Tang1, Yasuko Mori

  • 1Laboratoy of Virology, Division of Biomedical Research, National Institute of Biomedical Innovation, 7-6-8, Saito-Asagi, Ibaraki, Osaka 567-0085, Japan.

Future Microbiology
|July 17, 2010
PubMed

Human herpesvirus-6 (HHV-6) belongs to the herpesvirus family and is categorized into variant A and B (HHV-6A and HHV-6B). Primary HHV-6 infection in children and its related diseases are almost exclusively caused by HHV-6B and no disease caused by HHV-6A has been identified. The cellular receptor of HHV-6 has been shown to be a human CD46, and its viral ligand is an envelope glycoprotein complex, gH/gL/gQ1/gQ2 in HHV-6A. Furthermore, both cellular and viral lipid rafts play an important role in the HHV-6 entry process, suggesting that HHV-6 may enter its target cells through a lipid raft-associated mechanism.

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