In Vitro Antiviral Activity of Ribavirin Against Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus Myung Jin LEE1, Kye-Hyung KIM1, Jongyoun YI2, SuJin CHOI1, Chung-Jong KIM1, Nak- Hyun KIM1, Kyoung-Ho SONG1, Pyoeng Gyun CHOI1, Ji-Hwan BANG1, Wan Beom ...
In Vitro Antiviral Activity of Ribavirin Against Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus Myung Jin LEE1, Kye-Hyung KIM1, Jongyoun YI2, SuJin CHOI1, Chung-Jong KIM1, Nak- Hyun KIM1, Kyoung-Ho SONG1, Pyoeng Gyun CHOI1, Ji-Hwan BANG1, Wan Beom PARK1, Eu Suk KIM1, Sang-Won PARK1, Hong Bin KIM1, Nam Joong KIM1, Myoung- Don OH1 Seoul National University College of Medicine, Korea1, Pusan National University School of Medicine, Korea2 Background: Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging infectious disease caused by a novel Bunyavirus, severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV). No effective antiviral therapy is proven yet, but clinical use of ribavirin (RBV) has been tried. We investigated the antiviral effect of RBV against SFTSV in vitro. Methods: To test for cytotoxicity of RBV, Vero cells were treated with different concentrations of RBV (3.90 to 500 μg/mL, two-fold dilution) and analyzed by cell viability MTS assay 48h post-infection. To determine antiviral activity of RBV against SFTSV, Vero cells were infected with SFTSV strain Gangwon/Korea/2012 at 100 TCID50 (50% tissue culture infective dose) per well in a 96-well plate, and RBV was added at the concentrations showing no or minimal cytotoxicity. Viral RNAs were extracted from the culture supernatants and quantifi ed using one-step real-time reverse transcription- PCR to amplify the partial large segment of SFTSV. Statistical analysis was done by one-way ANOVA with Tukey`s post hoc test. Results: Cytotoxicity due to RBV was not observed at RBV concentration =31.3 μg/ mL. Viral RNAs at 24h post-RBV treatment were reduced with increasing RBV concentrations (1-32 μg/mL), compared with those of mock-treated cells (P <0.01, Figure). Half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of RBV was 3.69 μg/mL at 24h post-RBV treatment. Conclusions: Our study shows that RBV has antiviral effect against SFTSV in a dose-dependent manner. Further studies are required to evaluate the effi cacy of RBV in SFTS.