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Cover  Electron micrographs of vesicular stomatitis virions (VSV) undergoing endocytosis into L cells. These are some of the earliest images showing endocytosis of viruses into cells through what subsequently came to be known as clathrin-coated pits (Simpson, R.W., Hauser, R.E. and Dales, S. Viropexis of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus by L Cells. Virology, 1969, 37:285-290). At the time this work was published, coated pits and vesciles had been described by T.F. Roth and K.R. Porter (In: Bress Jr., S.S., ed. Proc. 5th Int. Cong. Electron Microsc., 1962, 2, LL-4), but the role of these structures was still poorly understood. At this time the mechanisms used by viruses to penetrate cells were also unclear. Dales and coworkers made major contributions to understanding these processes. In their study they rightly concluded that endocytosis (or "viropexis," as they termed it) was involved in VSV entry. It would be a further 10 years before the work of Helenius and colleagues and that of Lenard and Miller revealed that the fusion activity of these and other viruses is activated by the low pH in endocytic organelles. The figures were reprinted by permisson of Academic Press.Mark Marsh and Mark Shipman.