Effectiveness of the analogue of natural Schisandrin C (HpPro) in treatment of liver diseases: an experience in Indonesian patients.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of dimethyl-4,4'-dimethoxy-5,6, 5',6-dimethylene dioxybiphenyl-2,2'-dicarboxylate (HpPro) on patients with acute and chronic liver diseases. METHODS: An open trial and a prospective randomized and controlled study were performed. The open trial consisted of 56 cases (16 cases of acute hepatitis, 20 cases of chronic hepatitis, 14 cases of liver cirrhosis and 6 cases of fatty liver). Controlled study consisted of 20 cases of Child A chronic hepatitis which were randomly treated with either HpPro or a mixture of known drugs which used as a liver protective agent in Indonesia as control for one week. The patients were then crossed over those two drugs in the next week. RESULTS: In the open trial, after 4 weeks' treatment with HpPro 7.5 mg orally three times daily, acute hepatitis, chronic hepatitis and fatty liver cases showed rapid decrease of SGOT and SGPT. In the liver cirrhosis cases, SGOT and SGPT were decreased slowly. In the controlled trial, nine patients received HpPro 7.5 mg three times daily orally and eleven were treated with a mixture of known drugs as the controls. After one week treatment, HpPro group clinically showed significant decrease of SGPT and SGOT levels compared to control group (P = 0.035). At the second week, HpPro group showed significant decrease of SGOT compared to control group (P = 0.038) but the decrease of SGPT was not significant (P = 0.096). CONCLUSION: Treatment with HpPro is effective to reduce liver impairment in acute and chronic liver diseases on Indonesian patients. No side effect of HpPro was observed.

Evaluation of shell vial cell culture technique for the detection of bovine coronavirus.

The effect of blind passage and centrifugation on the isolation of bovine coronavirus in human rectal tumor cells cultured in shell vials was investigated. A total of 68 fecal samples known to be positive for bovine coronavirus by transmission electron microscopic (TEM) examination were used. The samples were centrifuged onto human rectal tumor cell monolayers and incubated in the presence of trypsin. The growth of bovine coronavirus in infected cells was demonstrated by fluorescent antibody staining, and the extracellular virus was detected and confirmed by hemagglutination and hemagglutination-inhibition tests, respectively. Of the 68 TEM-positive samples, 51 (75%), 58 (85%), and 61 (90%) grew in shell vial cell cultures at first, second, and third passages, respectively. Of the 51 cultures positive on first passage, 19 were examined by TEM; 18 of these were positive for bovine coronavirus. The shell vial technique was also compared with direct detection of bovine coronavirus by staining cryostat sections of infected tissues in a direct fluorescent antibody assay. The results of direct fluorescent antibody assay were available for 54 of the 68 samples, of which 53 (98%) and 43 (80%) were positive by shell vial technique and direct fluorescent antibody assay, respectively. For identification of bovine coronavirus, shell vials using human rectal tumor cells in the presence of trypsin is more sensitive than direct fluorescent antibody assay but is relatively less sensitive than transmission electron microscopy.

Rapid detection of pseudorabies virus by the shell vial technique.

Conventional 24-well microtiter plates and shell vials were seeded with pig kidney (PK-15) and bovine turbinate (BT) cells. The monolayers were inoculated with 244 clinical specimens from pigs suspected of having pseudorabies virus (PRV) infection. The results of a shell vial assay (SVA) were compared with those obtained in a 24-well plate cell culture assay in terms of sensitivity and speed of virus isolation. All samples were passaged only once in cell cultures in both assays. Samples producing cytopathic effects (cpe) in 1 or both assay systems and showing positive fluorescence in a direct fluorescent antibody assay were considered to be positive for PRV. Of the 244 samples examined, 118 (48.4%) and 121 (49.2%) were positive by the 24-well plate assay and SVA, respectively. Of the 118 samples positive in 24-well plates, 113 (95.8%) were positive in BT cells and 117 (99.2%) were positive in PK-15 cells. The SVA detected 121 positive samples of which 121 (100%) were positive in PK-15 cells and 113 (93.4%) were positive in BT cells. Virus-specific cpe appeared earlier in the SVA than in the 24-well assay. At 24 hours postinoculation, 91 (75.2%) samples were cpe positive by SVA, whereas only 15 (12.7%) were positive in 24-well plates. All but 2 of the 121 (98.3%) SVA-positive samples were positive within 48 hours postinoculation, whereas only 56 of 118 (47.5%) were positive in 24-well plates during the same time period. These results indicate that the SVA is comparable in sensitivity to 24-well plate assay but yields virus isolation results more quickly. Also, PK-15 cells appeared to be more sensitive than BT cells for PRV isolation.