Antiviral Effect of Lithium Chloride and Diammonium Glycyrrhizinate on Porcine Deltacoronavirus In Vitro

Xiaofeng Zhai; Shilei Wang; Mengyan Zhu; Wei He; Zhongzhou Pan; Shuo Su

doi:10.3390/pathogens8030144

Antiviral Effect of Lithium Chloride and Diammonium Glycyrrhizinate on Porcine Deltacoronavirus In Vitro

Pathogens. 2019 Sep 9;8(3):144. doi: 10.3390/pathogens8030144.

Authors

Xiaofeng Zhai¹, Shilei Wang², Mengyan Zhu³, Wei He⁴, Zhongzhou Pan⁵, Shuo Su⁶

Affiliations

¹ MOE International Joint Collaborative Research Laboratory for Animal Health & Food Safety, Jiangsu Engineering Laboratory of Animal Immunology, Institute of Immunology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China. 2016107062@njau.edu.cn.
² MOE International Joint Collaborative Research Laboratory for Animal Health & Food Safety, Jiangsu Engineering Laboratory of Animal Immunology, Institute of Immunology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China. 2017807154@njau.edu.cn.
³ MOE International Joint Collaborative Research Laboratory for Animal Health & Food Safety, Jiangsu Engineering Laboratory of Animal Immunology, Institute of Immunology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China. 2017107070@njau.edu.cn.
⁴ MOE International Joint Collaborative Research Laboratory for Animal Health & Food Safety, Jiangsu Engineering Laboratory of Animal Immunology, Institute of Immunology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China. 2018207049@njau.edu.cn.
⁵ MOE International Joint Collaborative Research Laboratory for Animal Health & Food Safety, Jiangsu Engineering Laboratory of Animal Immunology, Institute of Immunology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China. 2018807152@njau.edu.cn.
⁶ MOE International Joint Collaborative Research Laboratory for Animal Health & Food Safety, Jiangsu Engineering Laboratory of Animal Immunology, Institute of Immunology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China. shuosu@njau.edu.cn.

Abstract

Porcine deltacoronavirus (PDCoV) is an emerging global swine virus that has a propensity for interspecies transmission. It was identified in Hong Kong in 2012. Given that neither specific antiviral drugs nor vaccines are available for newly emerging porcine deltacoronavirus, searching for effective antiviral drugs is a high priority. In this study, lithium chloride (LiCl) and diammonium glycyrrhizinate (DG), which are host-acting antivirals (HAAs), were tested against PDCoV. We found that LiCl and DG inhibited PDCoV replication in LLC-PK1 cells in a dose-dependent manner. The antiviral effects of LiCl and DG occurred at the early stage of PDCoV replication, and DG also inhibited virus attachment to the cells. Moreover, both drugs inhibited PDCoV-induced apoptosis in LLC-PK1 cells. This study suggests LiCl and DG as new drugs for the treatment of PDCoV infection.

Keywords: PDCoV; apoptosis; diammonium glycyrrhizinate; lithium chloride.