Figure 4: Competition between the sialic acid receptor and the pocket factor.

(a) The conformational changes of the virus when sialylated receptor analogues bind the virus and eject the pocket factor. Amino acids in the native and in the receptor bound structures are shown in yellow and cyan, respectively. A water molecule is shown as a red sphere. Dash lines represent polar interactions. Red arrows indicate movements of the four loops. (b) Enlarged component of marked region in (a) shown in a slightly different orientation. (c) Preincubation of EV-D68 with pleconaril inhibits viral attachment onto non-treated HELF cells. Data are represented as mean±s.d. Experiments were done in triplicate.