2. Academic Validation
  3. Antiviral activity of esculin against white spot syndrome virus: A new starting point for prevention and control of white spot disease outbreaks in shrimp seedling culture

Antiviral activity of esculin against white spot syndrome virus: A new starting point for prevention and control of white spot disease outbreaks in shrimp seedling culture

  • J Fish Dis. 2022 Jan;45(1):59-68. doi: 10.1111/jfd.13533.
Li-Peng Shan 1 2 3,  Xu Zhang 1 2 3,  Yang Hu 1 2 3,  Lei Liu 1 2 3,  Jiong Chen 1 2 3
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 State Key Laboratory for Managing Biotic and Chemical Threats to the Quality and Safety of Agro-products, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China.
  • 2 Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Marine Sciences, Meishan Campus, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China.
  • 3 Key Laboratory of Applied Marine Biotechnology of Ministry of Education, Meishan Campus, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China.
PMID: 34536027 DOI: 10.1111/jfd.13533
Abstract

White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) is a pathogenic and threatening virus in shrimp culture for which there is no effective control strategy. Finding Antiviral lead compounds for the development of anti-WSSV drugs is urgent and necessary; in this study, esculin from 12 monomeric compounds exhibited an excellent anti-WSSV activity. The results showed that esculin increased the survival rate of WSSV-infected shrimps by 59% and reduced the virus copy number in vivo over 90% at 100 μM. In the pre-treatment and post-treatment experiments, esculin could prevent and treat WSSV Infection. Compared with the control group, the virus copy number decreased by 30% after 6 h of esculin pre-incubation with WSSV particles and inhibited horizontal transmission of WSSV to a certain extent. Considering that the Antiviral activity of esculin was stable in the aquacultural water for 2 days, we evaluated the dosing pattern of continuous medication changes. Obviously, the survival rate of WSSV-infected shrimps was 0% at 108 h when no esculin exchange was made, while at 120 h the survival rate was over 40% at continuous medicine changes. In addition, esculin significantly increased the expression of Antimicrobial Peptides and thus improved the ability of shrimp to resist WSSV. Overall, our findings suggest that esculin has the potential to be developed into an anti-WSSV medicine.

Keywords

antiviral; medicine discovery; monomeric compound; white spot syndrome virus.

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