HeLa cells (ATCC CCL2) were infected with the wild-type vaccinia virus strain Western Reserve (WR) or with the vaccinia deletion mutants DF13L (vRB12) (Blasco and Moss, 1991) or DA36R (Parkinson and Smith, 1994) at a multiplicity of infection of 1 p.f.u. (plaque-forming unit) per cell, as described previously (Ro Èttger et al., 1999) . Nocodazole dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and brefeldin A dissolved in ethanol were added to the culture medium to ®nal concentration of 10 mM and 5 mg/ml, respectively unless otherwise stated. In non-treated controls, an equal volume of DMSO or ethanol was added. Cells transfected with a myc-tagged p50/dynamitin expression construct (Echeverri et al., 1996) were infected 24 h later with WR and subsequently ®xed 6 h postinfection. All experiments described have been repeated 3±10 times.