Antiviral activity and possible mode of action of ellagic acid identified in Lagerstroemia speciosa leaves toward human rhinoviruses

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Ji Young Yoo¹  Young-Joon Ahn¹  Min Jung Kwon¹  Hwa-Jung Choi²  Sang Wook Park³ 

[1] Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Seoul National University, 151-921, Seoul, Republic of Korea;Department of Infection Biology, Zoonosis Research Center, Wonkwang University School of Medicine, 570-749, Iksan, Jeollabuk-do, Republic of Korea;Interdisciplinary Program in Agricultural Biotechnology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, 151-921, Seoul, Republic of Korea;

关键词: Human rhinovirus;    Natural antiviral agent;    Lagerstroemia speciosa;    Ellagic acid;    Tannin;    Cytotoxicity;    Selectivity;    RNA replication;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6882-14-171

 received in 2014-02-10, accepted in 2014-05-21,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundHuman rhinoviruses (HRVs) are responsible for more than half of all cases of the common cold and cause billions of USD annually in medical visits and school and work absenteeism. An assessment was made of the cytotoxic and antiviral activities and possible mode of action of the tannin ellagic acid from the leaves of Lagerstroemia speciosa toward HeLa cells and three rhinoviruses, HRV-2, -3, and -4.MethodsThe antiviral property and mechanism of action of ellagic acid were evaluated using a sulforhodamine B assay and real-time reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) with SYBR Green dye. Results were compared with those of the currently used broad-spectrum antiviral agent, ribavirin.ResultsAs judged by 50% inhibitory concentration values, natural ellagic acid was 1.8, 2.3, and 2.2 times more toxic toward HRV-2 (38 μg/mL), HRV-3 (31 μg/mL), and HRV-4 (29 μg/mL) than ribavirin, respectively. The inhibition rate of preincubation with 50 μg/mL ellagic acid was 17%, whereas continuous presence of ellagic acid during infection led to a significant increase in the inhibition (70%). Treatment with 50 μg/mL ellagic acid considerably suppressed HRV-4 infection only when added just after the virus inoculation (0 h) (87% inhibition), but not before -1 h or after 1 h or later (<20% inhibition). These findings suggest that ellagic acid does not interact with the HRV-4 particles and may directly interact with the human cells in the early stage of HRV infections to protect the cells from the virus destruction. Furthermore, RT-PCR analysis revealed that 50 μg/mL ellagic acid strongly inhibited the RNA replication of HRV-4 in HeLa cells, suggesting that ellagic acid inhibits virus replication by targeting on cellular molecules, rather than virus molecules.ConclusionsGlobal efforts to reduce the level of antibiotics justify further studies on L. speciosa leaf-derived materials containing ellagic acid as potential anti-HRV products or a lead molecule for the prevention or treatment of HRV infection.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Park et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.