The morphogenesis of rotaviruses follows a unique pathway in which immature double-layered particles (DLPs) assembled in the cytoplasm bud across the membrane of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), acquiring during this process a transient lipid membrane which is modified with the ER resident viral glycoproteins NSP4 and VP7; these enveloped particles also contain VP4. As the particles move towards the interior of the ER cisternae, the transient lipid membrane and the nonstructural protein NSP4 are lost, while the virus surface proteins VP4 and VP7 rearrange to form the outermost virus protein layer, yielding mature infectious triple-layered particles (TLPs). In this work, we have characterized the role of NSP4 and VP7 in rotavirus morphogenesis by silencing the expression of both glycoproteins through RNA interference. Silencing the expression of either NSP4 or VP7 reduced the yield of viral progeny by 75 to 80%, although the underlying mechanism of this reduction was different in each case. Blocking the synthesis of NSP4 affected the intracellular accumulation and the cellular distribution of several viral proteins, and little or no virus particles (neither DLPs nor TLPs) were assembled. VP7 silencing, in contrast, did not affect the expression or distribution of other viral proteins, but in its absence, enveloped particles accumulated within the lumen of the ER, and no mature infectious virus was produced. Altogether, these results indicate that during a viral infection, NSP4 serves as a receptor for DLPs on the ER membrane and drives the budding of these particles into the ER lumen, while VP7 is required for removing the lipid envelope during the final step of virus morphogenesis.Rotaviruses are nonenveloped icosahedral viruses whose capsid is formed by three concentric layers of protein. The innermost layer is formed by 60 dimers of VP2 that surrounds the viral genome composed of 11 segments of double-stranded RNA and 12 copies of each VP1, the virus polymerase, and VP3, the virus capping enzyme. The second layer of protein is formed by 280 trimers of VP6, which sits on top of VP2 to form double-layered particles (DLPs). Finally, the addition of 280 trimers of glycoprotein VP7 which constitute the outermost layer of the virus and 60 dimeric spikes of the VP4 protein to DLPs form triple-layered particles (TLPs) that represent the mature infectious virus (13).Rotavirus morphogenesis occurs by an unusual process where DLPs, which are thought to assemble in cytoplasmic inclusions termed viroplasms, bud across the membrane of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). During this process, the DLPs acquire a transient lipid envelope which is subsequently lost to yield the mature infectious TLPs (33). The ER membrane through which DLPs bud is modified by two viral proteins, the virion surface protein VP7 and the nonstructural polypeptide NSP4 (5, 7, 21). NSP4 has a large cytosolic domain that interacts with DLPs, and it has been proposed that this interaction drives the translocation of the double-layered particles into the lume...