Panel 30. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) provides another approach to visualize the the HIV budding. The technique does not allow to observe inside the viral particle, particularly the maturation of the capsid, but it allows to visualize the entire surface of the viruses and the infected cell. In the case of this photograph, it is thus possible to observe that almost the entire surface of the cell is involved in the budding of viral particles. This illustrates the extraordinary ability of a virus like HIV to multiply in an infected cell, generating a huge number of new viral particles that will be able to infect other cells.