URMITA CHAKRABORTY, MOONMOON SINHA, ARGHYADEEP BHATTACHARJEE, SULAGNA BANERJEE, SANJANA BANDYOPADHYAY, DEBADATTA NAYAK, ANIL KHURANA RAJ KUMAR MANCHANDA, DEBABRATA SARKAR1 AND SATADAL DAS
Abstract
Japanese encephalitis (JE) virus is a mosquito-borne Flavivirus, which causes JE in humans. The virus modulates host's immune response which determines the fate of the infected person. The cytokines, specifically type I and type II interferons play important role in the pathogenesis of JE virus. In this study our aim was to observe changes in cytokine profile of JE virus challenged chick chorio allantoic membrane (CAM) and to observe whether the most active component of Atropa belladonna â atropine along with its important compound atropine sulfate can modify the cytokine gene regulation as A. belladonna extract is a well known antiviral agent used in JE in alternative medicine. Eleven days old chicken eggs were inoculated with a standard dose of JE virus. The chick embryo was challenged with JE virus pretreated with atropine/ atropine sulfate keeping matched control sets. After harvesting of eggs in different experimental sets it was found that there was no pock on atropine and atropine sulfate treated CAM, while they were present in significant numbers in virus challenged CAM without atropine or atropine sulfate. IFNα and IFNγ were markedly up regulated in atropine and atropine sulfate added virus challenged CAM respectively. Atropine mainly up regulates type II interferon and atropine sulfate mainly up regulates type I interferon mainly IFNalpha in CAM. Thus in this study we find that both atropine and atropine sulfate may restrict the JE viral pathology by modulating the on chick CAM.