Articles of Significant Interest Selected from This Issue by the Editors

CD46 has been proposed as a cellular receptor for bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV), a flavivirus of the Pestivirus genus. Krey et al. (p. 3912-3922) show that numerous BVDV-1 and BVDV-2 isolates, including clinical samples without prior tissue culture passage, use CD46 as a receptor. Experiments using chimeric CD46 molecules identified a discrete region within complement control protein repeat 1 as essential for BVDV attachment. This CD46 binding platform for BVDV is located most distally from the cell surface. These findings underscore the importance of CD46 for BVDV entry and extend an understanding of CD46 as an important cellular receptor for numerous viral and bacterial pathogens.