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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary Infectious Diseases
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2024.1439015
This article is part of the Research Topic The application of new technologies such as new vaccines, therapeutic cytokines and antibodies, and antiviral drugs in the prevention and treatment of animal infectious diseases View all articles

Inhibition of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus replication by Rifampicin in vitro

Provisionally accepted
Ruiping Wei Ruiping Wei Lu Li Lu Li Haifan Chen Haifan Chen Xiaoying Wang Xiaoying Wang Yaosheng Chen Yaosheng Chen Xiaohong Liu Xiaohong Liu *
  • Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) continues to cause significant economic losses to the global swine industry, yet effective prevention and control measures remain elusive. The development of novel antivirals is thus urgently needed. Rifampicin (RFP), a semisynthetic derivative of rifamycin, has been previously reported to inhibit the replication of certain mammalian DNA viruses as well as RNA viruses. In this study, we unveil RFP as a potent inhibitor of PRRSV both in Marc-145 cells (half-maximal inhibitory concentration 61.26 μM) and porcine alveolar macrophages (half-maximal inhibitory concentration 53.09 μM). The inhibitory effect of RFP occurred during viral replication rather than binding, internalization and release. We also demonstrated that RFP inhibits PRRSV proteins production in the early stage of infection, without inhibiting host protein synthesis.Moreover, RFP effectively restricted porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) and porcine enteric alphacoronavirus (PEAV) infection in Vero cells. In summary, these findings indicate the promising potential of RFP as a therapeutic agent for PRRSV, PEDV and PEAV infection in pig farms.

    Keywords: rifampicin, Antiviral drugs, PRRSV, viral replication, PEDV, PEAV

    Received: 27 May 2024; Accepted: 26 Jun 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Wei, Li, Chen, Wang, Chen and Liu. 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: Xiaohong Liu, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

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