In
vitro antiviral activity of lactoferrin and ribavirin upon hantavirus
Murphy ME, Kariwa
H, Mizutani T, Yoshimatsu K, Arikawa J, Takashima I.
Laboratory of
Public Health, Graduate School of Veterinary Medicine, Hokkaido University,
Sapporo, Japan.
Bovine lactoferrin
(LF) and ribavirin (Rbv) were tested as antiviral agents against Seoul
type hantavirus (SR-11 strain) in vitro.
Hantaviral foci
number in Vero E6 cells infected with SR-11 was reduced with LF treatment
by 5 days post infection to obtain a 50% effective dose (ED50) of
2500 microg/ml, while pretreatment with LF was highly efficacious
having an ED50 of 39 microg/ml. Conversely, 1 h pretreatment with
Rbv revealed no inhibition of viral focus formation but could significantly
reduce the number of viral foci (ED50: 10 microg/ml) when used from
the time of viral infection.
One hour pre-treatment
of the cell monolayer with LF and subsequent addition of Rbv revealed
a synergistic anti-hantaviral effect against SR-11, <20 FFU/ml
as compared to 10(5) foci/ml in the control.
One hour treatment
of SR-11 with LF prior to cell inoculation gave an ED50 of 312.5 microg/ml.
Whereas, washing the LF-pretreated cell monolayer with PBS demonstrated
minimal focus reduction, suggesting LF lightly adheres to cells.
These results
indicate that LF has anti-hantaviral activity in vitro and inhibition
of virus adsorption to cells which play an important role in revealing
the anti-hantaviral activity of LF. This paper reports for the first
time the anti-hantaviral effect of LF.
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