Five years after its discovery, human rhinovirus C, a cold-causing virus that is associated with acute respiratory illness in children, has finally been cultured. This is the first step towards finding the virus's infection mechanisms, as well as possible antiviral targets.

Yury Bochkov of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and his colleagues grew two forms of HRV-C from nasal lavage fluid on sinus tissue left over from human surgeries. They then cloned a copy of the viral genome in a bacterial DNA structure called a plasmid, from which they produced new viral RNA. After introducing this construct into standard cell lines, they recovered infectious virus particles.

HRV-C seems to attach to cells by way of an unknown receptor not used by other HRVs, information which could be used to guide research into treatment approaches.

Nature Med. doi:10.1038/nm.2358 (2011)