Antiviral effect of the egyptian bee venom (bv) and its fraction (pla2) on influenza virus: in-vitro study

Influenza is a viral infection that attacks the respiratory system. For most people, the fludisappears on its own but sometimes the flu and its complications can be deadly. This studyestablished a new trend to treat Influenza virus by using bee venom and its fraction comparedwith the traditional flu drug. It was proved that bee venom (BV) has an antiviral effect. Thebee venom (BV), bee venom phospholipase A2 (BV-PLA2) and ribovinal as a control drugwere used. The cytotoxicity of the selected compounds was determined using MTT assay.Also, the cytopathic effect was measured after 24, 48 & 72 hours incubations anddetermination of gene expression of INF-gamma using SYBR Green. The IC50s of BV, BVPLA2and ribovinal were 87.8, 17.3 &137.5μg/ml after 24 hours incubation, 36.9, 9.6 &24.6μg/ml after 48 hours incubation, and 9.7, 7.45 & 31.6μg/ml after 72 hours incubation,respectively. In addition, the cytopathic effect of both BV and ribovinal was directlyproportional to its concentration and incubation time. Whereas, BV-PLA2 showed an increasein cytopathic effect after 48 hours in spite of its concentration in case of direct antiviral effect.However, the indirect antiviral effect for both BV and PLA2 showed the same cytopathiceffect in all concentrations and incubation times. So, the gene expression of INF-γ wassignificant increased after 48 hours incubation of either BV or ribovinal in direct and indirecteffects. While the INF-γ expression was (14.8 & 16.4) direct and in indirect antiviral effectsof BV-PLA2, respectively. These findings revealed the antiviral effect of both bee venom andBV-PLA2 against influenza virus.