Abstract
Background: It is known that hepatitis E virus (HEV) is zoonotically transmitted to humans and while other forms of hepatitis have been in focus for drug and vaccine development, HEV related mortality in case of pregnant women has raised upto 20%. Methods: HEV proteins, were successfully extracted from 22 pig stool samples and the presence of HEV capsid antigen encoded by the open reading frame 2 (ORF2) was confirmed suing dot blot and western blotting in 4 samples. HEV proteins were inoculated in pig epithelial cells (CLAB) and pig and goat macrophage cell lines (PoM2 and GOMA) to develop an in vitro model for observing the cytopathic effects (CPE). The HEV infected cell cultures were subjected to extracts obtained from Kaempfaria galanga (Galangal), Mimosa Pudica (Touch me not), Coleus aromaticus (Doddapatre) and Paederia foetida (Stinkvine). Results: We showed that a single treatment of 56.34 ug/ml HEV protein for 3 hours induced characteristic growth patterns of cells until 4 passages. We also found that extracts of K. galanga significantly (p<0.001) increased cell viability in CLAB cells while other extracts had cytotoxic effects. In the preventive study the both 10-2 and 10-3 dilution of K. galanga extracts significantly (p<0.001) prevented a decrease in cell viability CLAB cells after HEV infection. The 10-2 dilution of P. foetida also showed significant (p<0.001) effects. Extracts of K. galanga and M. Pudica were found to have a significant (p<0.001) preventive effect in PoM2 cells. Whereas, in treatment study, 10-2 dilution of C. aromaticus (p<0.01) and 10-3 dilution of P. foetida (pd ”0.001) increased cell viability after HEV infection in CLAB cells. 10-2 dilution of K. galanga was the only effective (p<0.001) extract in case of HEV infected PoM2 cells. Conclusion: We were the first to report CLAB and PoM2 cells as an in vitro model to study the CPE of HEV. We were also the first to report the activity of these medicinal extracts against HEV in a cell culture model. Extracts of K. galanga and P. foetida showed a promising anti-viral activity and the potential to be used as a natural therapy against HEV.

Key words: antiviral, cytopathic, extract, Hepatitis E virus (HEV), Indian Medicinal Herbs, zoonotic,