Abstract
Marine environments are a rich source of significant bioactive compounds. The Hawaiian archipelago, located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, hosts diverse microorganisms, including many endemic species. Thirty-eight microbial extracts from Hawaiian coastal waters were evaluated for their antiviral activity against four mammalian viruses including herpes simplex virus type one (HSV-1), vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), vaccinia virus and poliovirus type one (poliovirus-1) using in vitro cell culture assay. Nine of the 38 microbial crude extracts showed antiviral potencies and three of these nine microbial extracts exhibited significant activity against the enveloped viruses. A secosteroid, 5α(H),17α(H),(20R)-beta-acetoxyergost-8(14)-ene was putatively identified and confirmed to be the active compound in these marine microbial extracts. These results warrant future in-depth tests on the isolation of these active elements in order to explore and validate their antiviral potential as important therapeutic remedies.
Highlights
Viruses are known to cause a variety of infectious diseases which threaten public health
(* Samples with significant differences among different concentrations in ANOVA tests. Vero cell at their exponential growth phase were seeded in 96-well plates and exposed to different concentrations of selected marine extracts (4 wells per concentration)
Following a 2-day incubation time at 37 °C, cell viability was determined using methylthiazol tetrazolium (MTT) assay by measuring absorbance reading at 492 nm
Summary
Viruses are known to cause a variety of infectious diseases which threaten public health. Oceans represent a virtually untapped resource for the discovery of novel bioactive compounds [1]. The Census of Marine Life Project recently increased the estimate of marine species from more than 230,000 to at least one million marine organisms, and tens or even hundreds of millions of different microbes, such as protists, bacteria and archaea [2]. Secondary metabolites with various biological activities can be induced as a result of the complicated marine environment, some of which represent a valuable resource waiting to be discovered for the treatment of infectious diseases [3]. Hundreds of new compounds are reportedly identified from marine species each year [3], and several marine bioactive metabolites have been successfully developed by the pharmaceutical industry [4]
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