Fig. 2

Antiviral activity of PTE on HCMV. A Expression levels of IE1/2 and UL44 in the HCMV-infected cells with or without PTE treatment. WI-38 cells were pretreated with PTE (1 μM, 5 μM, 10 μM, 20 μM) for 2 h before HCMV (MOI = 0.5) inoculation. Protein expression intensity was analysed using western blotting at 5 dpi. GAPDH was used as the loading control. Representative images were acquired from three different independent experiments. B Quantitative analysis of the protein levels of IE1/2 and UL44 from three independent experiments. C and D Effects of PTE on viral UL123 and PP150 copy number in HCMV-infected cells (MOI = 0.5). The HCMV DNA was extracted 5 dpi as mentioned in the Materials and Methods section. The copy numbers of UL123 and PP150 gene were measured with the 2^−△△Ct method, the HCMV infection only group was used as control. E and F IFA results in the HCMV-infected (MOI = 0.5) WI-38 cells with or without PTE treatment. HCMV inoculation and PTE treatment were performed as described in the Materials and Methods section. The IE1/2-positive signals were detected by a mouse IE1/2 monoclonal antibody combined with FITC-conjugated goat anti-mouse IgG. G PTE inhibited the production of infectious virions. WI-38 cells were pretreated with the indicated concentrations of PTE for 2 h and then infected with HCMV (MOI = 0.5). The cell culture supernatant samples were collected at 5 dpi. The virus titre was calculated by TCID₅₀ assays according to the Reed-Muench method. The falf-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) was determined based on the results of the TCID50 assay according to nonlinear trajectory analysis using GraphPad Prism. ^#P < 0.05, ^##P < 0.01, ^###P < 0.001