Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) is the most important contagious disease of cloven-hooved animals. The disease is known to causes huge economic losses to livestock production and trade; therefore, requiring the development of effective preventive and therapeutic interventions. Recently, Bee venom (BV) has been reported to exhibit antiviral activities against many enveloped and non-enveloped viruses. The antiviral properties of BV against Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) have not been enough investigated. Hence, in this work, we evaluated the inhibitory effects of BV against FMDV using cell-based virus inhibition assay, real time PCR and electron microscopy. Treatment of FMDV with BV caused significant (25.7%) reduction in virus titers suggesting a virucidal activity of BV. BV also caused a 20.8% reduction in virus titers when cells were treated with BV before infection suggesting antiviral state induction in cells. This finding was supported by increased interferon-gamma (IFNγ) levels in BV treated cells. These findings suggest BV could be used as a preventive or therapeutic agent.

To Cite This Article: Alkhalefa N, Elkon I, Manzoor R, Elfiky A, and Mohamadin M, 2021. Antiviral effect of bee venom on foot and mouth disease virus (an in-vitro Study). Pak Vet J, 41(2): 279-283. http://dx.doi.org/10.29261/pakvetj/2020.105