细胞上的病毒受体病毒附着和进入细胞依靠细胞表面特殊结构的存在,这种结构能被病毒附着蛋白所识别。细胞表面受体可能仅限于一种质膜受体,腺病毒和EB病毒受体可能就是如此。另外,识别结构可能是普遍分布的,例如,唾液酸是细胞表面流感病毒、副粘病毒、多瘤病毒和脑心肌炎病毒受体的基本成份。因为含有唾液酸残基的糖蛋白和糖脂有许多不同的排列,所以潜在受体分子的数目是巨大的。 Attachment of the virus receptor virus on the cell and entry into the cell depend on the presence of a special structure on the surface of the cell that can be recognized by the viral attachment protein. Cell surface receptors may be restricted to a plasma membrane receptor, as may be the case with adenovirus and Epstein-Barr virus receptors. In addition, the recognition structure may be generally distributed, for example, sialic acid is the basic component of the cell surface influenza virus, paramyxovirus, polyoma virus and encephalomyocarditis virus receptors. Because there are many different alignments of glycoproteins and glycolipids containing sialic acid residues, the number of potential acceptor molecules is enormous.