The association of A10L and L4R with virus particles and microtubules raises the question of whether there is a role for this microtubule-binding activity during infection. We wondered whether these two proteins mediate the interaction of incoming viral cores with microtubules at the beginning of infection, as cores and not virus particles are released in the cytoplasm at the start of the infection cycle (Ichihashi, 1996; Vanderpasschen et al., 1998; Pedersen et al., 2000) . To examine this possibility, we investigated whether puri®ed viral cores would bind microtubules in vitro. We found that viral cores were able to bind microtubules, while protease-treated cores showed no association ( Figure 11A and B) . Pre-incubation of puri®ed viral cores with antibodies against A10L and L4R speci®cally inhibited the interaction of viral cores with microtubules ( Figure 11C and D); in contrast, IgG or antibodies against A3L had no inhibitory effect ( Figure 11E and F). Taken together, our data suggest that A10L and L4R have MAP-like properties and may play a role in mediating interactions of incoming viral cores with microtubules.