Enterovirus 71 (EV71) infections continue to remain an important public health problem around the world, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. There is a significant mortality rate following such infections, and there is neither any proven therapy nor a vaccine for EV71. This has spurred much fundamental research into the replication of the virus. In this review, we discuss recent work identifying host cell factors which regulate the synthesis of EV71 RNA and proteins. Three of these proteins, heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein A1 (hnRNP A1), far-upstream element-binding protein 2 (FBP2), and FBP1 are nuclear proteins which in EV71-infected cells are relocalized to the cytoplasm, and they influence EV71 internal ribosome entry site (IRES) activity. hnRNP A1 stimulates IRES activity but can be replaced by hnRNP A2. FBP2 is a negative regulatory factor with respect to EV71 IRES activity, whereas FBP1 has the opposite effect. Two other proteins, hnRNP K and reticulon 3, are required for the efficient synthesis of viral RNA. The cleavage stimulation factor 64K subunit (CstF-64) is a host protein that is involved in the 3 polyadenylation of cellular pre-mRNAs, and recent work suggests that in EV71-infected cells, it may be cleaved by the EV71 3C protease. Such a cleavage would impair the processing of pre-mRNA to mature mRNAs. Host cell proteins play an important role in the replication of EV71, but much work remains to be done in order to understand how they act.Enterovirus 71 (EV71) is an important neurotropic enterovirus for which there is currently no effective therapy and no vaccine. Outbreaks of infection with this virus have occurred around the world (1,2,34,43,60,72,78,98). EV71 manifests most frequently as a childhood exanthem known as hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD). However, acute EV71 infection can also be associated with severe neurological disease and significant mortality. Children under 5 years old are particularly susceptible to severe forms of EV71-associated neurological complications, including aseptic meningitis, brainstem and/or cerebellar encephalitis, and acute flaccid paralysis, as well as myocarditis and rapid fatal pulmonary edema with hemorrhage (9, 40, 57, 79). EV71, first described by Schmidt et al. in 1974 (74), belongs to human enterovirus species A of the genus Enterovirus, family Picornaviridae, a large diverse group of small RNA viruses, for which poliovirus is the prototype. EV71 contains a positivestrand RNA genome of approximately 7,400 nucleotides (nt). Although not all the details of EV71 replication are understood, all enteroviruses do share a similar viral genome structure and strategy of replication. The most intensively studied enterovirus is poliovirus, which can be taken as a general model for EV71 (23).Enteroviruses are nonenveloped viruses about 30 nm in diameter. They encode four structural proteins and have an icosahedral capsid of 60 identical subunits, each of which is made up of one copy of VP1, VP2, and VP3. VP4 is an internal protein. The viral RNA has...