The drug did not harm uninfected cells, thus offering hope that it would have no toxic side effects in humans.
The infected cell area will create a plaque (an area of infection surrounded by uninfected cells) which can be seen visually or with an optical microscope.
MP-30 is thought to bind to the virus's own genome and shuttle it from infected cells to uninfected cells through plasmodesmata.
This promotes the release of progeny viruses and the spread of the virus from the host cell to uninfected surrounding cells.
That compound and another, 1-deoxynojirimycin, greatly reduced the ability of infected cells to fuse with uninfected cells, the scientists wrote.
When infected, immune cells are able to better migrate into tissues compared to uninfected cells.
This leaves small regions of dead cells called plaques in a larger background of living uninfected cells.
Some assembled Metaviridae particles can penetrate and infect previously uninfected cells.
The uninfected cells from both cell lines were also negative showing no cross-reactivities with CMV (data not shown).
The gametocytes are large (3-6 times the size of the nucleus of an uninfected cell) and almost fill the erythrocyte.