Griffithsin inhibits porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus infection in vitro

Abstract

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) is a pathogen that severely disrupts swine production. Despite sustained efforts, the disease is still endemic, with high mortality and morbidity. New antiviral strategies to control PRRSV are needed. Griffithsin, a red algal lectin, has potent antiviral effect on several human enveloped viruses, but this effect has not been demonstrated on PRRSV. Here, we first tested the in vitro antiviral activity of Griffithsin against PRRSV. Griffithsin exerted strong saccharide-dependent antiviral activity against PRRSV, probably through interactions with glycans on the surface of PRRSV that interfered with virus entry. Furthermore we revealed that Griffithsin's action on PRRSV involved blocking viral adsorption, and it had no effect on viral penetration. Besides Our findings also suggested that Griffithsin may interfere with cell-to-cell spread to prevent virus transmission. The remarkable potency profile of Griffithsin supports its potential value as an antiviral agent against PRRSV.

Xanthohumol inhibits PRRSV proliferation and alleviates oxidative stress induced by PRRSV via the Nrf2–HMOX1 axis

“…Some microRNAs, small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) [14], and short-hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) [15] have also been shown to inhibit PRRSV replication. Meanwhile, some natural compounds and compositions have also been reported to have anti-PRRSV activity in vitro, such as sodium tanshinone IIA sulfonate [16], proanthocyanidin A2 [17], Griffithsin [18], and (-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate [19]. However, the mechanism of antiviral activity is not deeply understood.…”

Reappraising host cellular factors involved in attachment and entry to develop antiviral strategies against porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus

“…The importance of antiviral drugs is increasingly apparent owing to PRRSV persistence in pigs. There are a growing number of antiviral agents reported interfering with PRRSV attachment or/and entry, including antimicrobial peptides protegrin-1 ( Guo et al, 2015 ), cecropin P1 ( Guo et al, 2014a ), cecropin D ( Liu et al, 2015 ), lavaspidic acid AB ( Yang et al, 2013 ), glycyrrhizin ( Duan et al, 2015 ), tetrahydroaltersolanol C ( Zhang et al, 2016 ), curcumin ( Du et al, 2017 ), griffithsin ( Li et al, 2018a ), iota-carrageenan ( Guo et al, 2019b ), polyethylenimine ( Wang et al, 2019b ), 25-hydroxycholesterol ( in vitro and in vivo ) ( Ke et al, 2017 ; Song et al, 2017 , 2019 ; Dong et al, 2018 ) and rottlerin ( in vitro and in vivo ) ( Kang et al, 2021 ). Chinese herbal medicines also contain antiviral molecules to block PRRSV attachment and entry ( Bello-Onaghise et al, 2020 ).…”

The Need for Ocular Protection for Health Care Workers During SARS-CoV-2 Outbreak and a Hypothesis for a Potential Personal Protective Equipment

“…Griffithsin is a small lectin consisting of 121 amino acids and is derived from Griffithsia spp. (28). Grifithsin has been found to be able to block the entry of a variety of enveloped viruses, including HIV, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV and HCV and efficiently inhibit viral entry, because it has high affinity to bind to multiple sites of glycoproteins on the virus envelope (29)(30)(31)(32).…”