Antiviral activity of Hyaluronic Acid

Hyaluronic acid is a non-sulfated glycosaminoglycan widely distributed in connective tissues. It has several medical applications including ophtalmic surgery, treatment of osteoarthitis and atopic dermatitis. Moreover, ialuronic acid gels are used in regenerative medicine for wound healing and are injected for filling soft tissues defectes such as facial wrinkles or lipoatrophy in lipodistrophic patients. In order to ascertain whether an antimicrobial activity is associated with the tissue regeneration ability, we investigated the in vitro antiviral and virucidal activity of a mid molecular size ialuronic acid gel used as facial filling and for wound healing.MTT test on VERO cells was used to assess the toxicity of the product which resulted devoid of any cytotoxicity at the concentrations (4mg/ml) used for medical purposes.By means of virus yield assays, we evaluated the ability of this type of ialuronic acid to inhibit the growth of herpes simplex vitus type 1, mumps virus, coxsackievirus B5 and adenovirus. The virucidal activity on the same viruses was assessed treating viral preparations with ialuronic acid for 10 minutes at room temperature and then testing the residual infectivity of these preparations. The results obtained show that ialuronic acid can inhibit the growth of HSV-1 and mumps virus (1 Log reduction at least).