Abstract
An increasing number of publications describe the potential of ionic liquids (ILs) as novel antimicrobials, antibacterial coatings and even as active pharmaceutical ingredients. Nevertheless, a major research area, notably their impact on viruses, has so far been neglected. Consequently the aim of this study was to examine the effects of ILs on the infectivity of viruses. A systematic analysis to investigate the effects of defined structural elements of ILs on virus activity was performed using 55 ILs. All structure activity relationships (SARs) were tested on the human norovirus surrogate phage MS2 and phage P100 representing non-enveloped DNA viruses. Results demonstrate that IL SAR conclusions, established for prokaryotes and eukaryotes, are not readily applicable to the examined phages. A virus-type-dependent IL influence was also apparent. Overall, four ILs, covering different structural elements, were found to reduce phage P100 infectivity by ≥4 log10 units, indicating a virucidal effect, whereas the highest reduction for phage MS2 was about 3 log10 units. Results indicate that future applications of ILs as virucidal agents will require development of novel SARs and the obtained results serve as a good starting point for future studies.
Highlights
Ionic liquids (ILs) continue to find numerous applications, ranging from simple solvents to tools for chemical synthesis, CO2 capture, coatings etc. (Thuy Pham et al, 2010)
Past research has shown that IL toxicity is highly variable and ILs can be classified over a range from non-toxic to toxic
The toxic effects of ILs have already been described on several biological test systems and some heuristic rules based on certain structural elements of ILs have been published
Summary
Ionic liquids (ILs) continue to find numerous applications, ranging from simple solvents to tools for chemical synthesis, CO2 capture, coatings etc. (Thuy Pham et al, 2010). With the increasing range of IL applications from laboratory to factory scale, their toxicity and environmental fate have rightly been questioned over the past decade (Stolte et al, 2007; Bubalo et al, 2014). In almost all investigated biological test systems (from enzyme inhibition assays to in vitro tests in vertebrates) several pronounced IL toxicity structure–activity relationships (SAR) have been identified (Thuy Pham et al, 2010). One relationship from SAR studies that has been frequently reported relates increased IL toxicity with increased cationic side-chain length (until a certain threshold or “cut-off effect” is reached; Docherty and Kulpa, 2005). This side-chain effect most probably results from increased
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