Sub-lethal Dose of Atropine Gives Protection from Japanese Encephalitis Virus Infection in Chick Embryo Model

Japanese encephalitis (JE) is now a public health concern due to limitation of the available vaccine and nonexistence of specific antiviral therapy and thus demands new potential therapeutical strategies. The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of atropine in controlling JE virus infection in chick embryo, which is already established as an ideal model for study of various host–pathogen interactions and screening of newer antiviral agents. In this experiment we pre-treated 12 day old embryos with atropine sulphate to see whether it can give protection from JE virus challenge. There were significant decrease in the viral loads in the brain, chorioallantoic membrane and amniotic fluid of the embryo in atropine sulphate pre-treated groups compared to the infection groups. Atropine sulphate pre-treated group showed significant up-regulation of interferon alpha and toll like receptor-3 mRNA, than other analogous groups. The histological changes showed significant reduction of necrosis, inflammation and other co-morbid pathology in the atropine sulphate pre-treated groups. Hence this study demonstrated the protective role of atropine in controlling the JE virus replication and its organ-tropic dissemination to brain which may pave way for a prospective therapy in the future treatment of JE.