Inhibition of African swine fever virus infection by genkwanin

Abstract

African swine fever virus (ASFV) is the causative agent of an economically important disease of pigs for which no effective vaccines or antiviral drugs are available. Recent outbreaks in EU countries and China have highlighted the critical role of antiviral research in combating this disease. We have previously shown that apigenin, a naturally occurring plant flavone, possesses significant anti-ASFV activity. However, apigenin is practically insoluble in highly polar solvents and it occurs typically in derivative forms in plants. Here we screened several commercially available apigenin derivatives for their ability to inhibit ASFV Ba71V strain in Vero cells. Among them, genkwanin showed significant inhibition of ASFV, reducing viral titer from 6.5 ± 0.1 to 4.75 ± 0.25 log TCID/ml in a dose-dependent manner (IC50 = 2.9 μM and SI = 205.2). Genkwanin reduced the levels of ASFV early and late proteins, as well as viral DNA synthesis. Our further experiments indicated that genkwanin is able to inhibit ASFV infection at entry and egress stages. Finally, genkwanin displayed potent antiviral activity against highly virulent ASFV isolate currently circulating in Europe and China, emphasizing its value as candidate for antiviral drug development.