Dissecting the role of integrin subunits α2 and β3 in rotavirus cell entry by RNA silencing

Several cell surface molecules have been implicated in rotavirus cell entry, however, their individual relevance during this process is unknown. In this work, the expression of integrins α2, β2, and αvβ3, the heat shock cognate protein 70, and of ganglioside GM1 in different cell lines of human and simian origin was correlated with the infectivity of four rotavirus strains. We observed that different combinations of receptor expression correlated with the infectivity of rotavirus strains, suggesting that the participation of several receptors is important for rotavirus infection. To characterize the relevance of integrins α2 and αvβ3 in more detail, their expression was silenced using RNA interference. About 80% decrease in the cell content of integrins resulted in 15–30% decrease of infectivity of strains RRV and Wa when measured by a focus-forming assay, while there was no decrease of infectivity when measured by flow cytometry in integrin-deficient cells. Altogether these data suggest that integrins α2 and αvβ3 do not play a major role in the rotavirus entry process.