Effect of Anti-Respiratory Syncytial Virus Activities by RNA Interference and Ribavirin in vitro

Objective To investigate the effect of RNA interference(RNAi) on inhibiting respiratory syncytial virus(RSV) replication through comparing the anti-RSV activities between pshRNA7816 and ribavirin in cell culture system.Methods The recombinated plasmid pshRNA7816 and ribavirin was added to HEp-2 cells.Methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium(MTT) assay was used to detect cytotoxicity of pshRNA7816 and ribavirin on normal HEp-2 cells and protective effects of them on RSV infected HEp-2 cells.The effects of pshRNA7816 and ribavirin on change of cytopathogenic effect(CPE) of HEp-2 cells induced by RSV infection were observed through microscopically.Results pshRNA7816 had not significant toxicity on the growth of HEp-2 cells,but the ribavirin had significant toxicity when the concentration above 1.0 mmol/L.The pshRNA7816 and ribavirin could alleviate the CPE of HEp-2 cells induced by RSV infection,but the pshRNA7816 showed a more potent inhibition than ribavirin.The inhibition rates of pshRNA7816 were significantly higher than the maximum inhibition rate of ribavirin on RSV infection(P0.05).Conclusion The recombinate plasmid pshRNA7816 show a more potent anti-RSV activities than ribavirin.