In vitro antiviral activity of styrylpyrone derivative-incorporated formulations against Herpes simplex virus type-1

ABSTRACT

Aims: This study was aimed to evaluate in vitro antiviral activity of topical formulations incorporated with a styrylpyrone derivative (SPD) against Herpes Simplex Virus type 1 (HSV-1). Methodology and results: Two types of SPD-incorporated formulations (ointment and gel) were tested for their antiviral activity against HSV-1 clinical strain using plaque reduction assay on Vero cells. The antiviral activity was determined based on the percentage of plaque reduction occurred between treatment and control (non-treated infected cells). In this study, 10% SPD-gel (SPD = 0.004 mg) and 20% SPD-ointment (SPD = 0.003 mg) showed plaque reduction percentage of 87% and 79% respectively. Further evaluation on the ointment base, gel base (formulation without SPD) demonstrated less than 10% of antiviral activity while pure SPD at 0.0025 mg showed 81% of plaque reduction. These results indicated that the antiviral activity observed in both SPD-incorporated ointment and gel was mainly due to SPD regardless of formulation components. Furthermore, the antiviral activities observed in both SPD-incorporated products were also in agreement with the antiviral activity observed in pure SPD. Conclusion, significance and impact study SPD-incorporated products retained the antiviral activity and can further be tested in animal model.