FIG. 3.

Dose-dependent, inhibitory effect of Ara-C in the BDV minireplicon assay. Analysis of reporter gene expression by a CAT ELISA. BSR-T7 cells (treated or not with the different compounds) were transfected with the minigenome construct together with optimal quantities of the expression plasmids for the BDV L, N, and P proteins. In the negative control (−), the plasmid encoding BDV L was replaced by the same amount of a plasmid encoding green fluorescent protein. The positive control (+) consisted of untreated cells and was set at 100% in each experiment. For an internal control for transfection efficiency, a plasmid encoding Renilla luciferase under the control of a polymerase II promoter was cotransfected. Seventy-two hours after transfection, the cells were lysed and analyzed for CAT protein and luciferase levels. CAT values were normalized for transfection efficiency and are expressed for each sample as the percentage of the value with the untreated control. Data shown are means (± standard deviations) for three independent experiments.