Quercetin as an Antiviral Agent Inhibits Influenza A Virus (IAV) Entry

Viruses

Wenjiao Wu¹  Richan Li¹  Xianglian Li¹  Jian He¹  Shibo Jiang²  Shuwen Liu¹  Jie Yang¹ 

[1] State Key Laboratory of Organ Failure Research, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China;Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute, New York Blood Center, New York, NY 10065, USA;

关键词: entry inhibitor;    hemagglutinin;    influenza A virus;    quercetin;   

DOI  :  10.3390/v8010006

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Influenza A viruses (IAVs) cause seasonal pandemics and epidemics with high morbidity and mortality, which calls for effective anti-IAV agents. The glycoprotein hemagglutinin of influenza virus plays a crucial role in the initial stage of virus infection, making it a potential target for anti-influenza therapeutics development. Here we found that quercetin inhibited influenza infection with a wide spectrum of strains, including A/Puerto Rico/8/34 (H1N1), A/FM-1/47/1 (H1N1), and A/Aichi/2/68 (H3N2) with half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀) of 7.756 ± 1.097, 6.225 ± 0.467, and 2.738 ± 1.931 μg/mL, respectively. Mechanism studies identified that quercetin showed interaction with the HA2 subunit. Moreover, quercetin could inhibit the entry of the H5N1 virus using the pseudovirus-based drug screening system. This study indicates that quercetin showing inhibitory activity in the early stage of influenza infection provides a future therapeutic option to develop effective, safe and affordable natural products for the treatment and prophylaxis of IAV infections.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.