ABSTRACT
The porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) has recently been shown to cause huge economic losses in the global pork industry. Our results demonstrated that the extract dose-dependently inhibited the replication of PEDV and reduced the visible cytopathic effect (CPE). Treatment with C. heterophylla Fisch extract resulted in marked reduction of PEDVinduced cytokine and chemokine expression. The antiviral activity of C. heterophylla Fisch extract on PEDV replication was found to be primarily exerted at the early stages after infection. Taken together, our data indicate that C. heterophylla Fisch extract may be a good therapeutic agent for use against PEDV and also a potential candidate to be evaluated against other human and animal coronaviruses.
Subject(s)
Animals , Humans , Coronavirus , Corylus , Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus , Red MeatABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Biomedical products such as viral vaccines can be contaminated with hazardous viruses during manufacturing processes and storage, thus causing harmful side effects. To assure the safety of biomedical products, highly effective and sensitive methods should be available to detect contaminating viruses. In this study, we performed recovery tests to determine the limit of detection of HIV-1. METHODS: An HIV-1 plasmid preparation was serially diluted and spiked into various culture media (DMEM, RPMI-1640, IMDM, GICM, and SDM) containing 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS). The HIV-1 plasmid was detected by PCR alone or a combination of PCR and ELISA (PCR/ELISA). RESULTS: When spiked into DMEM, RPMI, and IMDM, less than 4x10(-2) ng of HIV-1 plasmid was not detectable as HIV-1 PCR products in agarose gel. Intra- and inter-assays (n=6) showed that the PCR-ELISA system could detect PCR products diluted as much as 1, 875 times from HIV-1 plasmid serially spiked in various media. CONCLUSIONS: The PCR/ELISA system can be useful for the detection of trace amounts of hazardous viruses which may be present as contaminants in biological products.