Abstract
Eupatorium fortunei (EF) has long been used as herbal medicine in Korea, China, and Asian countries to treat a variety of diseases. Recent studies have reported that EF has anti-metastatic, anti-angiogenic, anti-bacterial, and anti-oxidant activities, as well as activities against malignant metastatic human cancers. The effect of EF and its components on viruses has not been reported. In the present study, the antiviral activity and mechanism of action of an aqueous extract of EF (WEF) and its components were evaluated in vitro. We found that pretreatment with WEF markedly reduced viral replication, as evaluated using a green fluorescent protein (GFP)-tagged virus (influenza A virus, Newcastle disease virus, and vesicular stomatitis virus) in murine RAW 264.7 macrophage cells. We demonstrated that WEF induces the production of type I IFN including pro-inflammatory cytokines. Additionally, we identified the active anti-viral components of WEF as quercetin, psoralen, and quercitrin. Thus, WEF and its active components are immunomodulators of the innate immune response in murine macrophages, a finding that is potentially useful to developing prophylactic or therapeutic treatments against a range of viruses.
Highlights
Viral pathogens cause malignant diseases in humans and animals, resulting in considerable mortality, morbidity, and economic losses worldwide (Thompson et al, 2002; Lindahl and Grace, 2015)
The cytotoxicity of water extract of EF (WEF) was assessed using the MTS assay after 24 h treatment of murine RAW 264.7 macrophage cells with various concentrations of WEF
Cells, which had high levels of green fluorescent protein (GFP) expression upon infection with VSV (Figure 3A), PR8 (Figure 3B), and NDV (Figure 3C). These results are consistent with the viral titers of GFP-expressing VSV, and PR8 viruses in the cell supernatant and infected cells
Summary
Viral pathogens cause malignant diseases in humans and animals, resulting in considerable mortality, morbidity, and economic losses worldwide (Thompson et al, 2002; Lindahl and Grace, 2015). Vaccines and treatments for various diseases have been developed, but new mutant strains resistant to these vaccines emerge (Moscona, 2005). The rapid emergence of several new drugresistant viruses necessitates the development of new treatment modalities (Moscona, 2005), including effective chemotherapeutic agents (Hurt et al, 2012; Choi et al, 2016; Piret and Boivin, 2016). Herbal medicine, which is a traditional medicine used in Korea, China, and Asian countries, has been used for thousands of years as a combination of various compounds. Traditional medicine has relieved the symptoms of various diseases including cancer and infectious diseases, and has been used for thousands of years and is still being used.
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