Edible bird’s nest modulate intracellular molecular pathways of influenza A virus infected cells

Abstract

BackgroundEdible Bird’s Nest (EBN) as a popular traditional Chinese medicine is believed to have health enhancing and antiviral activities against influenza A virus (IAV); however, the molecular mechanism behind therapeutic effects of EBN is not well characterized.MethodsIn this study, EBNs that underwent different enzymatic preparation were tested against IAV infected cells. 50% cytotoxic concentration (CC50) and 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) of the EBNs against IAV strain A/Puerto Rico/8/1934(H1N1) were determined by HA and MTT assays. Subsequently, the sialic acid content of the used EBNs were analyzed by fluorometric HPLC. Western Blotting and immunofluorescent staining were used to investigate the effects of EBNs on early endosomal trafficking and autophagy process of influenza virus.ResultsThis study showed that post inoculations of EBNs after enzymatic preparations have the highest efficacy to inhibit IAV. While CC50 of the tested EBNs ranged from 27.5–32 mg/ml, the IC50 of these compounds ranged between 2.5–4.9 mg/ml. EBNs could inhibit IAV as efficient as commercial antiviral agents, such as amantadine and oseltamivir with different mechanisms of action against IAV. The antiviral activity of these EBNs correlated with the content of N-acetyl neuraminic acid. EBNs could affect early endosomal trafficking of the virus by reducing Rab5 and RhoA GTPase proteins and also reoriented actin cytoskeleton of IAV infected cells. In addition, for the first time this study showed that EBNs can inhibit intracellular autophagy process of IAV life cycle as evidenced by reduction of LC3-II and increasing of lysosomal degradation.ConclusionsThe results procured in this study support the potential of EBNs as supplementary medication or alternative to antiviral agents to inhibit influenza infections. Evidently, EBNs can be a promising antiviral agent; however, these natural compounds should be screened for their metabolites prior to usage as therapeutic approach.

Chinese Medicine in the Management of New and Emerging Infectious Diseases

“…Haghani et al studied the "in vitro and in vivo mechanism of immunomodulatory and antiviral activity of EBN against influenza A virus infection [9] . Immunomodulation via cytokine induction due to EBN has been reported [10] . Haghani et al [11] commented on "the potential of EBNs as supplementary medication or alternative to antiviral agents to inhibit influenza infections".…”

Edible Bird’s Nest Ameliorates Dextran Sulfate Sodium-Induced Ulcerative Colitis in C57BL/6J Mice by Restoring the Th17/Treg Cell Balance

“…Edible bird's nest (EBN; known as Yanwo in Chinese), which comes from swiftlets belonging to the family Apodidae and the genus Aerodramus, has multiple nutritional and pharmaceutical benefits, such as pro-conception effects, neuroprotective effects and bone loss improvement (Matsukawa et al, 2011;Careena et al, 2018;Albishtue et al, 2019;Hou et al, 2019). Additionally, some studies have shown that EBN with antiviral activities can regulate the expression of some immune cytokines involved in influenza A virus infection, such as tumour necrosis factor α (TNF-α), interferon (IFN)-γ, interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, IL-10 and chemokine (C-C motif) ligand (CCL) 2 (Haghani et al, 2016;Haghani et al, 2017). Several pro-inflammatory cytokines (e.g., IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α) that can induce Th17 cell polarization have key roles in the pathogenesis of UC (Acosta-Rodriguez et al, 2007;Gálvez, 2014;Lee et al, 2018).…”

The Anti-Viral and Anti-Inflammatory Properties of Edible Bird’s Nest in Influenza and Coronavirus Infections: From Pre-Clinical to Potential Clinical Application

“…Over the past decades, there has been a growing interest in the use of natural products for their medicinal values (Kamil et al, 2018;Hamid et al, 2020;Kamil et al, 2020;Prom-In et al, 2020). EBN, is an emerging food product with known anti-viral effects, especially against Influenza A virus (IAV) (Guo et al, 2006;Haghani et al, 2016;Haghani et al, 2017), the most common cause of the global pandemic. EBN significantly reduced viral titer, viral-induced hemagglutination (Haghani et al, 2017), virus-binding activity (Guo et al, 2006), and virus-induced endocytosis and autophagosomes (Haghani et al, 2017).…”

“…EBN, is an emerging food product with known anti-viral effects, especially against Influenza A virus (IAV) (Guo et al, 2006;Haghani et al, 2016;Haghani et al, 2017), the most common cause of the global pandemic. EBN significantly reduced viral titer, viral-induced hemagglutination (Haghani et al, 2017), virus-binding activity (Guo et al, 2006), and virus-induced endocytosis and autophagosomes (Haghani et al, 2017). In addition to anti-viral, EBN also demonstrated antiinflammatory (Vimala et al, 2012), anti-oxidant (Yew et al, 2014), and immunomodulatory properties (Haghani et al, 2016), indicating its potential as an all-around prophylactic or therapeutic option for influenza, SARS-CoV-2 and its associated complications, such as cytokine storm.…”