Objective: Coxsackie B viruses (CVB3) are considered to be the most common etiologic agents of viral myocarditis. There are not any special anti-CVB3 drugs yet. From previous studies, the anti-CVB3 affect of sophora flavescens ait (SFA) had been discovered. Our experiment was to study the anti-CVB3 ability of SFA to cultured heating myocardial cells of CVB3 infected newborn rat.
Methods: The myocardial cells were divided into four groups: 1. infected group (n = 8), infected only with CVB3, not adding SFA; 2. treated group (n =8), infected with CVB3, adding SFA (100 microg/ml); 3. drug group (n=6), adding SFA (100 microg/ml) only; 4. control group (n = 6), not infected with CVB3, not adding SFA.
Results: The myocardial cells of the infected group had cell pathogenic effect (CPE) on the second day after virus inoculation, the CPE progressed rapidly from + to ++++. In contrast, no CPE in the other three groups was found. The LDH and SGOT of the infected group were higher than that in the other three groups, showing a significant difference (P <0.05). The virus titer of the infected group was higher than that of the treated group. There was no influence on normal myocardial cells if the concentration of SFA was lower than 300 microg/ml. When the concentration of SFA was 6.25 microg/ml 200 microg/ml, it showed protective effect on infected myocardial cells.
Conclusions: The results of the experiment suggest that SFA might inhibit CVB3 replication in myocardial cells.