Antiviral Effectiveness of Nigella sativa Oil on LaSota Strain of Newcastle Disease Virus In Vitro

Abstract

Abstract Objectives: Newcastle disease (ND) is a highly prevalent disease among poultry all over the world and causes great economic losses in the poultry industry. Despite the high effectiveness of vaccines for controlling such diseases, there is no operative antiviral drug utilized to treat infections. This study aims to test Nigella sativa oil as an antiviral for the ND virus. Materials and Methods: Oil of N. sativa was incubated along with (the LaSota strain) virus for 1 and 24 h in the laboratory and its antiviral effect was detected by performing a hemagglutinating test for the detection of surface protein activity, reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction for the detection of the virus. In addition, the toxicity of the oil to the organism was determined by injecting it into the allantoic fluid of embryos of chicken with a virus or without it. Results: The results revealed that such a product plays an important function in reducing the virus's effectiveness, perhaps by destroying the receptors on the surface of the virus by comparing with the control group, which included treating the virus with phosphate saline only, which offered the opposite. Besides, there was a clear effect on the viral genome. Moreover, no organism toxicity was there because the embryos were oil-injected only or with a mixture of oil and virus were healthy and similar to the uninoculated embryos. In addition, the embryos injected with the virus showed signs of disease compared to the other oil-containing groups. Conclusions: This study concludes that the current findings indicate that the oil of N. sativa will be a worthy antiviral and may have a function in disease control.