Curcumin inhibits the replication of rotavirus in vitro

Rotavirus is the most important etiological agent of infectious diarrhea in children under 5 years of age with more than 125,000 deaths occurring annually worldwide. The present study aims to determine the effect of curcumin, a natural polyphenol compound, on rotavirus in a cell culture model. The anti-viral activity of curcumin was evaluated by reverse-transcriptase quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR), TCID50, and western blot techniques to assess CC50 in curcumin-treated MA104 cells as well as EC50 and SI within the infected MA104 cell line. Our findings supported that curcumin exerted an inhibitory influence against rotavirus in a dose-dependent manner and decreased the viral titer and VP6 expression by ~99% at a concentration of 30 μM (p Keywords: curcumin; rotavirus; RT-qPCR; in vitro; anti-rotavirus agent.