Apigenin inhibits African swine fever virus infection in vitro

Abstract

African swine fever virus (ASFV) is one of the most devastating diseases of domestic pigs for which no effective vaccines are available. Flavonoids, natural products isolated from plants, have been reported to have significant in vitro and in vivo antiviral activity against different viruses. Here, we tested the antiviral effect of five flavonoids on the replication of ASFV in Vero cells. Our results showed a potent, dose-dependent anti-ASFV effect of apigenin in vitro. Time-of-addition experiments revealed that apigenin was highly effective at the early stages of infection. Apigenin reduced the ASFV yield by more than 99.99 % when it was added at 1 hpi. The antiviral activity of apigenin was further investigated by evaluation of ASFV protein synthesis and viral factories. This flavonoid inhibited ASFV-specific protein synthesis and viral factory formation. ASFV-infected cells continuously treated with apigenin did not display a cytopathic effect. Further studies addressing the use of apigenin in vivo are needed.

Genistein inhibits African swine fever virus replication in vitro by disrupting viral DNA synthesis

“…Genistein can also inhibit HIV infection by blocking the viral protein U, which is believed to form ionic channels in the infected cell (Sauter et al, 2014). We previously reported that ASFV was sensitive to genistein, though at concentrations that were toxic in this study (Hakobyan et al, 2016). Differences in non-toxic concentrations can be explained by the previously used method to measure cytotoxicity, crystal violet assay, which is less sensitive than MTT used in this study.…”

“…However, none of them have been taken forward for commercial production (Zakaryan and Revilla, 2016;Arias et al, 2017). It is in this context that we conducted the antiviral screening of different compounds for the development of effective antiviral therapeutics (Hakobyan et al, 2016(Hakobyan et al, , 2018. One such compound, genistein, has been shown to inhibit replication of different viruses through diverse mechanisms.…”

“…Viral DNA measurements were done as previously described (Hakobyan et al, 2016). Briefly, Vero cells and macrophages grown on coverslips (3 × 10 5 cell/well) and infected with ASFV BA71V (2 TCID 50 /cell) and ASFV Armenia/07 (2 HADU 50 /cell), respectively, were exposed to genistein (50 μM) from 0 hpi or from 8 hpi.…”

“…We have recently found that two flavonoids, apigenin and genistein, exerted inhibitory effect on the replication of ASFV in vitro (Hakobyan et al, 2016). However, the anti-ASFV mechanisms of genistein were not investigated.…”

Flavonoids: promising natural compounds against viral infections

“…Apigenin isolated from sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum) showed a potent antiviral activity against adenoviruses (ADV) and hepatitis B virus in vitro [17]. Besides these DNA viruses, apigenin was found to exert antiviral effect against African swine fever virus (ASFV), by suppressing the viral protein synthesis and reducing the ASFV yield by 3 log [46]. Apigenin is also active against RNA viruses.…”