Figure 5. Silymarin inhibits total virus transmission and cell-to-cell spread.

Naïve unlabelled Huh-7.5 cell targets were pre-incubated with 80μM Silymarin or equivalent volume of DMSO for 1h at 37C. The pre-treated cells were then co-cultured with CMFDA labeled H77/JFH infected Huh-7.5 producers for 48hrs. The cultures were performed in the presence of either mAb 9/27, an anti-E2 (HVR) neutralizing antibody or an anti-HIV gp120 irrelevant control, mAb 10/76B. Each treatment was performed in duplicate. The co-cultures were harvested, stained and analysed by flow cytometry and the percentage of infected cells was calculated. Cell culture media from each co-culture was tested for the presence of HCVcc particles. Released H77/JFH virus were readily detectably in media containing control antibody, no infectious particles were detected in the media containing mAb 9/27, indicating that extracellular spread of virus was not occuring and only cell-cell spread was operative. A, Silymarin (SM) reduces both total and cell:cell transmission. B, Silymarin inhibits both total and cell:cell transmission in comparable manner suggesting that it does not discriminate between the alternative routes.