Detection of acidic vacuoles in cells transfected with full-length HBV genomes.

<p>Huh-7 cells were either starved or transfected with pUC19 empty vector (control), F1b wt, F1b BCPdm, F1b preCore, F4 wt, F4 BCPdm and F4 preCore variants. Forty-eight hours post-transfection, cells were fixed and stained with acridine orange (AO). AO was imaged through a 515/530-nm band-pass filter (green) or a 580-nm long-pass filter (red). (A) Representative images are shown. (B) Quantification of AO-red dots per cell. Shown values represent the mean ± standard deviation of three independent experiments. Statistically significant changes compared to control cells are indicated with asterisks above bars. *** <i>p</i> < 0.0001.