Figure 7.

Antiviral activity evaluation of PLE and PPE against HSV-1 downstream of the viral binding. Viral dilution was incubated for 1 h at 4 °C with or without PPE and PLE at 100 µg/mL and 50 µg/mL. Then, the infection was performed on Vero cells at a multiplicity of infection (MOI) of 1 with gentle shaking. After 1 h, the virus inoculum was removed, the monolayer was overlaid with a growth medium for 24 h and processed for real-time PCR and Western blot analysis. (A,B) Relative quantization of viral DNA and viral transcripts (ICP0, UL42 and US11) was performed using real-time quantitative PCR and analyzed by the comparative Ct method (ΔΔCt). Values represent ± SD of the average of three independent experiments normalized against GAPDH. (C) Western blot analysis of ICP0, UL42 and Us11 viral proteins. GAPDH was used as a housekeeping gene. The quantitative densitometric analysis for ICP0, UL42 and Us11 band intensities was determined using ImageJ software and expressed as fold change over the appropriate housekeeping gene. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001, **** p < 0.0001 vs. HSV-1 + DMSO.