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Inhibition of Borna disease virus replication by ribavirin
I Jordan1, T Briese, D R Averett
1Laboratory for the Study of Emerging Diseases, Department of Neurology, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-4292, USA.
Abstract:
The guanosine analogue ribavirin was tested for antiviral activity in two neural cell lines, human oligodendrocytes and rat glia, against Borna disease virus (BDV) strains V and He/80. Ribavirin treatment resulted in lower levels of virus and viral transcripts within 12 h. Addition of guanosine but not adenosine resulted in a profound reduction of the ribavirin effect. Ribavirin appears to be an effective antiviral agent for treatment of BDV infection in vitro. A likely mechanism for its activity is reduction of the intracellular GTP pool, resulting in inhibition of transcription and capping of BDV mRNAs.