Antiviral activity of the green marine alga Ulva fasciata on the replication of human metapneumovirus

Abstract

SUMMARYWe evaluated the antiviral activity of the marine alga, Ulva fasciata, collected from Rasa beach and Forno beach, Búzios, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on the replication of human metapneumovirus (HMPV). The algae extracts were prepared using three different methodologies to compare the activity of different groups of chemical composites obtained through these different methodologies. Four out of the six extracts inhibited nearly 100% of viral replication. The results demonstrated that the majority of the extracts (five out of six) possess virucidal activity and therefore have the ability to interact with the extracellular viral particles and prevent the infection. On the other hand, only two extracts (from Forno beach, obtained by maceration and maceration of the decoction) were able to interact with cell receptors, hindering the viral entry. Finally, only the extract of algae collected at Forno beach, obtained by maceration presented intracellular activity. To our knowledge, this is a pioneer study on antiviral activity of marine algae against HMPV. It is also the first on antiviral activity against HMPV ever done in Brazil. The study also shows the effect of different environment factors and different chemical procedures used to obtain the extract on its biological properties.

Anti-HSV activity of Hypnea musciformis cultured with different phytohormones

“…The results of our study show that the inhibitory activity of the marine algal extracts occurs primarily in the initial periods of the virus-cell interaction through interaction with virus particles and/or cellular receptors, avoiding the adsorption of the particles, in agreement with available literature data (Witvrouw & De Clercq, 1997;Romanos et al, 2002a,b;Ghosh et al, 2004;Serkedjieva, 2004;Harden et al, 2009;Mendes et al, 2010;Bouhlal et al, 2011;Mendes et al, 2011).…”

“…Typically, marine algal extracts have low toxicity to cell cultures (Romanos et al, 2002b;Adhikari et al, 2006;Mandal et al, 2007;Wang et al, 2007;Mendes et al, 2010). Our findings point to similar results.…”

“…Therefore, the search for new anti-HSV drugs is critical. Some marine algae have been shown to inhibit the propagation of different microorganisms, including bacteria (Mayer et al, 2009), fungi (Genovese et al, 2009) and viruses (Santos et al, 1999;Romanos et al, 2002a,b;Tziveleka et al, 2003;Mendes et al, 2010;Mendes et al, 2011). Hypnea musciformis (Wulfen) J.V.…”

Potentiality of Silver Nanoparticles Prepared by Ulva fasciata as Anti-nephrotoxicity in Albino-Rats

“…Simple bromophenols, especially 2, 4, 6-tribromophenol, lipid components, dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) had been largely described for this genus (Mendes et al, 2010). It was reported that a sulfated heteropolysaccharide from Ulva rigida, which belongs to the same family as Enteromorpha, could markedly activate macrophages (Leiro et al, 2007).…”

Inhibition of Japanese Encephalitis Virus Infection by the Sulfated Polysaccharide Extracts from Ulva lactuca

“…Recently, the antiviral activities of the extracts from Ulva fasciata were shown to be effective against human metapneumovirus (Mendes et al 2010), human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (Romanos et al 2002), and avian influenza viruses (Ivanova et al 1994). Whether Ulva lactuca is equally effective against JEV, however, was not known.…”