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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol.
Sec. Veterinary and Zoonotic Infection
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2025.1531415
This article is part of the Research Topic Viral Diseases in Swine View all 6 articles
Chebulinic acid suppresses porcine epidemic diarrhea virus infection by inhibiting viral entry and viral main protease
Provisionally accepted
Zhonghua Li 1*
Yizhi Huang 1 Yi Zhang 1 Di Zhao 1
Lei Wang 1 Zhanchang Wang 2
Qunbing Hu 3 Ling Yang 3
Tao Wu 1
Yongqing Hou 1*- 1 Hubei Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feed Science, Wuhan Polytechnic University, Wuhan, China
- 2 Forestry and Fruit Tree Research Institute, Wuhan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Wu Han, China
- 3 Hubei Horwath Biotechnology Co., Ltd, Xianning, Hubei Province, China
Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) has resulted in significant economic losses in the global swine industry, making the development of effective therapeutic approaches a pressing need. In this study, we found chebulinic acid significantly restrained PEDV relication in CCL-81 and LLC-PK1 cells, demonstrated by reductions the decrease in viral genome, viral protein, and titer. Molecular docking analysis made it clear that chebulinic acid might bind the key amino acids of binding pocket and active centre of PEDV main protease. Subsequent in vitro experiments confirmed the inhibitory effects of chebulinic acid on PEDV main protease, with an IC50 value of 61.53±2.12 μM determined through a fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) assay. Additional investigations demonstrated that chebulinic acid could inhibit the attachment and penetration processes of PEDV infection. Overall, our results provide experimental evidence supporting the inhibitory effects of chebulinic acid on PEDV infection by targeting viral entry and the inhibitory effects main protease. The results of this study offer potential for creating new treatments for porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED).
Keywords: Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, Chebulinic acid, main protease inhibitor, Attachment, Penetration
Received: 20 Nov 2024; Accepted: 18 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Huang, Zhang, Zhao, Wang, Wang, Hu, Yang, Wu and Hou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Zhonghua Li, Hubei Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feed Science, Wuhan Polytechnic University, Wuhan, China
Yongqing Hou, Hubei Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feed Science, Wuhan Polytechnic University, Wuhan, China
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