Meth reduces plaque formation in human lung epithelial A549 cells infected with influenza A viruses.

The plaque-reduction assay was performed in A549 cells as described in Materials and Methods. Cells were exposed to meth at indicated concentrations or left unexposed as the control, followed by infection with influenza A/WSN/33 (H1N1) virus in the presence of meth at indicated concentrations. (A) Plaque phenotype. A representative result of three independent experiments with similar results is shown. The size of plaques under conditions of meth treatments at 125 and 250 µM appeared to be smaller than that in the condition without meth treatment. (B) Relative plaque numbers. The results are means ± SD of three replicates, and expressed as relative ratios of plaque numbers in meth-treated groups to that in the meth-untreated group (control). Significant differences from the control were indicated (*: p < 0.05).