Dissection of the Influenza A Virus Endocytic Routes Reveals Macropinocytosis as an Alternative Entry Pathway

de Vries, Erik; Tscherne, Donna M.; Wienholts, Marleen J.; Cobos-Jiménez, Viviana; Scholte, Florine; García-Sastre, Adolfo; Rottier, Peter J. M.; de Haan, Cornelis A. M.

A full experimental characterization of the IAV entry pathways will benefit from separation of the IAV entry pathways into routes that can be studied independently. Whereas co-localization with clathrin is an established marker for endocytosis via this route, the complete lack of unique markers for macropinosomes or most other endocytic compartments [13, 14] complicates such studies. Furthermore, crucial to any study concerning endocytic pathways is the abundantly documented fact that such pathways are highly dependent on experimental cell culture conditions [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] . Pathways that are constitutive in one cell type may be absent or inducible by specific experimental conditions in other cell types. Moreover, the manipulation of specific endocytic pathways may result in up or down regulation of other specific pathways.