Synthesized flavanoid-derived ligand reduced dengue virus type-2 replication in vitro

Objective: To investigate the antiviral property of a lead ligand, YK51 that was synthesized based on the flavanoid of a natural product toward dengue virus type-2 (DENV2) replication. Methods: cRNA was isolated from HepG2 cells inoculated with 1000 median tissue culture infective dose of DENV2 and treated with different doses of the ligand followed by RT-PCR to quantify the virus gene copies. Confocal microscopy of actin and tubulin redistribution was also performed. Results: The quantitative RT-PCR result showed reduction of the DENV2 gene copies as the ligand concentration was increased. The confocal microscopy result showed increase in the tubulin intensity (79.6%) of infected BHK21 cells treated with the ligand, compared with the non-treated cells (54.8%). The 1.5-fold increase in the intensity of tubulin suggested that the ligand inhibitory effect stabilized the cellular microtubule structure. Conclusions: The synthesized ligand YK51 reduced DENV2 viral load by inhibiting virus replication thus is highly potential to be developed as antiviral agent.