Fig 9. Hypertonic saline solution inhibits CVB3 replication and relieves mice heart tissue damage.

Thirty 4-week-old A/J mice were randomly allocated equally into six groups and infected with CVB3 of 10⁵ pfu. NaCl solution at 0.9%, 5% and 7.5% concentration was IP injected into the mice daily during the infection, each concentration was administrated to two groups of mice (10 mice). At 6 d pi, the mice were euthanized and the heart tissues were harvested. Part of the heart tissue was homogenized for Western blot analysis of VP1 (A) and plaque assay to determine viral particle formation (B). (C) The remaining heart tissues from these mice were fixed, sectioned and H&E stained to evaluate the tissue damage. The arrows indicated the inflammatory lesions with immune infiltration. Sham-infected /mock-treated mice were the additional controls. (D) The frequency of each myocarditis score in every treatment was shown in the histogram. The results were compared by χ² test and p < 0.01 was considered as a significant difference.