Objective: To investigate the prophylactic,blocking and therapeutic effects of Allitridin on inhibiting HCMV proliferation
by measuring the
expression level of HCMV IEA in vitro and explore the mechanism of Allitridin anti-HCMVactivity. Methods: The cytotocity of Allitridin was evaluated through MTT colorimetry and cell morphology.HCMV IEA levels were quantitatively detected by
Flow Cytometry respectively under the following conditions:Allitrdin was given before(pretratcd for 24 h),during,or after viral inoculation in which a serial doses(maximum tolerant concentration,MTC for human embyo lung cells,HEL) of Allitridin was used to treat HCMV infected HLE cells for different durations (24,48,72,96 h) after viral infection. Result: The MTC of Allitridin was 9.60 mg·L -1 .Allitridin remarkably inhibited the expression of HCMV IEA in vitro .Within MTC,the inhibitory rate had a significative correlation with its dosage ( r =0.96).At the time of IEA highest expression (72 h after iinfection),inhibitory effect was the greatest(inhibitory rate:89.3%).With pretreatment of Allitridin,the inhibitory rate was 28.6%. When Allitridin was used together with HCMV inoculation,IEA inhibitory rate was only 10.3%. Conclusion: Allitridin can inhibit HCMV, IEA expression in vitro remarkably which is probably one of the major mechanisms of Allitridin anti-HCMV activity because IEAs are the very important regulatory factors for the expression of all HCMV genes.Its therapeutic effect is the best at the peak stage of IE1 gene expression (72 h after infection)but it has low prophylactic and little blocking effect.