In Vitro Evaluation of Antiviral Activities of Funicone-like Compounds Vermistatin and Penisimplicissin against Canine Coronavirus Infection

Recent studies have demonstrated that 3-O-methylfunicone (OMF), a fungal secondary metabolite from Talaromyces pinophilus belonging to the class of funicone-like compounds, has antiviral activity against canine coronaviruses (CCoV), which causes enteritis in dogs. Herein, we selected two additional funicone-like compounds named vermistatin (VER) and penisimplicissin (PS) and investigated their inhibitory activity towards CCoV infection. Thus, both compounds have been tested for their cytotoxicity and for antiviral activity against CCoV in A72 cells, a fibrosarcoma cell line suitable for investigating CCoV. Our findings showed an increase in cell viability, with an improvement of morphological features in CCoV-infected cells at the non-toxic doses of 1 μM for VER and 0.5 μM for PS. In addition, we observed that these compounds caused a strong inhibition in the expression of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), a ligand-activated transcription factor which is activated during CCoV infection. Our results also showed the alkalinization of lysosomes in the presence of VER or PS, which may be involved in the observed antiviral activities

Antiviral activity of Taurisolo® during bovine alphaherpesvirus 1 infection

: Bovine alphaherpesvirus 1 (BoAHV-1), the pathogen causing Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis (IBR) and predisposing to polymicrobial infections in cattle, provokes farm economic losses and trading restrictions in the world. However, nontoxic antiviral agents for BoAHV-1 infection are still unavailable, but plant extracts, such as flavonoid derivatives possess activity against BoAHV-1. Taurisolo®, a nutraceutical produced by Aglianico grape pomace, has recently shown promising antiviral activity. Herein, the potential activity of Taurisolo® during BoAHV-1 infection in Madin Darby bovine kidney (MDBK) cells was tested. Taurisolo® enhanced cell viability and reduced morphological death signs in BoAHV-1-infected cells. Moreover, Taurisolo® influenced the expression of bICP0, the key regulatory protein of BoAHV-1, and it strongly diminished virus yield. These effects were associated with an up-regulation of aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), a transcription factor involved in microbial metabolism and immune response. In conclusion, our findings indicate that Taurisolo® may represent a potential antiviral agent against BoAHV-1 infection. Noteworthy, AhR could be involved in the observed effects and become a new target in antiviral therapy

Phonological and Lexical Reading in Italian Children with Dyslexia

In this study we explore the development of phonological and lexical reading in dyslexic children. We tested a group of 14 Italian children who have been diagnosed with dyslexia and whose reading age is end of grade 1. We compared this group with a group of 70 typically developing children who have been tested for reading at the end of grade 1. For each dyslexic child we also selected a participant who was attending the same grade, was close in age, and showed typical reading development when tested with a narrative passage reading task (Cornoldi, Colpo, & Gruppo MT, 1981) for correctness and reading speed. Children in this group are "same grade controls." We used a reading task consisting of 40 three syllables words. A qualitative and quantitative method of coding children's naming allowed us to distinguish several components of their reading performance: the grapheme and word recognition, the size of orthographic units involved in the aloud orthography-phonology conversion, the reading process used to recognize words. The comparison of the dyslexic group with the reading age and the same grade control groups reveals different trends of delayed reading processes. Considering dyslexic children's chronological age, lexical reading is greatly delayed. Considering dyslexic children's reading age, the type of reading process that is more deeply delayed is phonological reading. The rate of fragmented phonological reading (i.e., a type of syllabized phonological reading) is much higher in dyslexic children compared to the reading age group, suggesting that some factors undermine the possibility of internalizing the orthography-phonology conversion and the blending processes