Patent ID: 7312031

Claim:
A method for detecting the presence or absence of cell fusion, which comprises: contacting a system comprising a first cell with a second cell, wherein: the first cell comprises a first reporter molecule fragment and a viral envelope protein; the second cell comprises a second reporter molecule fragment and a viral envelope protein receptor capable of binding to the viral envelope protein of the first cell; the first cell is a HeLa cell and the second cell is a 293T cell, or the first cell is a 293T cell and the second cell is a HeLa cell; the first reporter molecule fragment and the second reporter molecule fragment combine to form a functional reporter molecule upon fusion of the first cell with the second cell; and detecting the presence or absence of a signal produced by the functional reporter molecule, whereby the presence of cell fusion is detected by the presence of a signal and the absence of cell fusion is detected by the absence of a signal.