Actividad antiviral

Antiviral Research 56 (2002) 279 Á/285 www.elsevier.com/locate/antiviral

Short communication

Antiviral activity of Spirulina maxima against herpes simplex virus type 2
Armida Hernandez-Corona a, Irma Nieves a, Mariana Meckes b, ´ German Chamorro c, Blanca L. Barron a,*,1 ´
a

Departamento de Microbiologıa, Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biologicas, IPN, Carpio y Plan de Ayala S/N Casco de SantoTomas, ´ ´ ´ Apartado Postal 102, Mexico, DF 11340, Mexico ´ b Centro Medico Siglo XXI, IMSS, Mexico D.F., Mexico ´ ´ c Departamento de Farmacia, Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biologicas, IPN, Carpio y Plan de Ayala S/N Casco de Santo Tomas, Mexico, ´ ´ ´ DF 11340, Mexico Received 29 May 2002; accepted 5 August 2002

Abstract Spirulina has been used in a variety of practical applications inbiotechnology and medical sciences. This paper presents the antiviral activity found in a hot water extract (HWE) of a commercial preparation of Spirulina maxima , studied by a microplate inhibition assay, using several viruses. The HWE inhibited the infection for: herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2), pseudorabies virus (PRV), human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), and HSV-1, and the 50% effective inhibition doses(ED50) were 0.069, 0.103, 0.142, and 0.333 mg/ml for each virus, respectively. For adenovirus the inhibition was less than 20%, and no inhibition was found for measles virus, subacute sclerosing panencephalitis virus (SSPE), vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), poliovirus 1 and rotavirus SA-11, at concentrations of 2 mg/ml of the HWE. The highest antiviral activity was for HSV-2, with a selectivityindex of 128. The antiviral activity was not due to a virucidal effect. Herpesvirus infection was inhibited at the initial events (adsorption and penetration) of the viral cycle. To initiate the isolation and identification of the compound that exhibits the antiviral activity of S. maxima , some extracts made by using several solvents with different polarity were evaluated by microplate inhibitionassay using HSV-2. The highest antiviral activity was detected in the methanol Á/water 3:1, which suggests that the antiviral activity is probably due to highly polar compounds. # 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Spirulina ; Inhibition; HSV-2; Hot water extract

Spirulina (Arthrospira ) platensis and Spirulina maxima have a long history of use as a food for

*Corresponding author. Fax: '/52-55-5729-6207 E-mail address: bbarron@ipn.mx (B.L. Barron). 1 E-mail: bbarron@prodigy.net.mx.

humans, traditionally for some Mexican (Aztecs) and African (Lake Chad area) peoples. (Ciferri and Tiboni, 1985). Spirulina is a planktonic blue Á/ green alga found in some warm water alkaline volcanic lakes, and has been considered as a supplement in human and animal food (Dillon et0166-3542/02/$ - see front matter # 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 1 6 6 - 3 5 4 2 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 1 3 2 - 8

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al., 1995). Actually, it is being widely studied for its possible anticancer, antibacterial, and antiparasitic properties, and for several medical conditions such as allergies, ulcers,anemia, heavy-metal poisoning, and radiation poisoning (Al-Batshan et al., 2001; Dasgupta et al., 2001; Zhang et al., 2001; Rodriguez-Hernandez et al., 2001; Pinero Estrada et al., 2001; Hirahashi et al., 2002). S. platensis has been also studied for its antiviral properties (Hayashi et al., 1993; Ayehunie et al., 1998), which seem to be related to its sulfated polysaccharide named calcium spirulan(Hayashi et al., 1996a,b). S. maxima grows naturally in Mexico, in the ´ Texcoco Lake, and several commercial preparations have been widely studied and evaluated for their possible toxic effects. Until now, S. maxima has not shown any side effects in several experimental animals (Chamorro et al., 1988a,b, 1989; Chamorro and Salazar, 1990; Salazar et al., 1996; Chamorro, 1997; Salazar et al., 1998)....