Antiviral potential of phenolic compounds against HSV-1: In-vitro study

This in vitro study aimed to investigate the effect of several phenolic compounds, including doxorubicin, quercetin, and resveratrol, on HSV-1 infection.

The cytotoxicity of the drugs was assessed on Vero cells using the MTT assay. HSV-1 was treated with the drugs, and the supernatants were collected at various time points. TCID50% and qPCR tests were conducted on the supernatants to determine viral titration post-inoculation.

The TCID50% assay showed significant changes in viral titration for acyclovir, doxorubicin, and quercetin at most concentrations (p-value < .05), while no significant changes were observed for resveratrol. The qPCR results demonstrated that drug-treated HSV-1 exhibited a significant reduction in DNA titers at various time points compared to non-treated HSV-1 infected Vero cells, except doxorubicin (0.2 µM) and acyclovir (5 µm). However, over time, DNA virus levels gradually increased in the drug-treated groups. Notably, at certain concentrations of doxorubicin and quercetin-treated groups, virus titer significantly declined, similar to acyclovir.

Our findings suggest that quercetin at concentrations of 62 and 125 µM significantly reduced HSV-1 infectivity, as well as these two concentrations of quercetin showed a significant difference in virus reduction compared with acyclovir (10 µM) at certain time points. The anti-inflammatory properties of quercetin, in contrast to acyclovir, make it a potential candidate for anti HSV-1 treatment in life-threatening conditions such as Herpes encephalitis. Additionally, doxorubicin, an anticancer drug, showed meaningful inhibition of HSV-1 at non-toxic concentrations of 2 and 8 µM, suggesting its potential interference with HSV-1 in viral-oncolytic therapy in cancer treatment.