Replication of Equine arteritis virus is efficiently suppressed by purine and pyrimidine biosynthesis inhibitors

jose-carlos Valle-Casuso; Delphine Gaudaire; Lydie Martin-Faivre; anthony madeline; Patrick Dallemagne; Stephane Pronost; Helene Munier-Lehmann; Stephan Zientara; Pierre-Olivier Vidalain; Aymeric Hans

The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.10.035402 doi: bioRxiv preprint virus (PRRSV) 28 . We thus tested the antiviral effects of ribarivin on EAV using the cell-viability assay 146 described above. As a prerequisite, we first evaluated the cytotoxicity of ribavirin on ED cells. Cells 147 were incubated with ribavirin at different concentrations (0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 20, 50 and 100 µg/ml), 148 and the number of viable cells was determined after 1 h without treatment or after 48 h with or without 149 treatment. No significant cell death was reported at 10 µg/ml or lower concentrations of ribavirin when 150 compared to the initial number viable cells seeded in the culture wells ( Figure 2A ). However, ribavirin 151 was clearly cytostatic at these concentrations. Cell viability at 20 µg/ml was 72%, and decreased to 152 63% and 52% when treating cells with 50 µg/ml and 100 µg/ml of ribavirin, respectively (Figure 2A) . 153