A novel rare sugar inhibitor of murine herpes simplex keratitis

Purpose to determine the therapeutic efficacy of a novel rare sugar,l-psicose,for the treatment of hsv-1 induced herpetic stromal keratitis (hsk) in a mouse eye model. methods one rare sugar l-psicose was assayed for hsv-1 inhibition of in vitro virus adsorption. the ic50 and ic90 values of l-psicose were determined using plaque reduction assay (pra) in cv-1 cell. female balb/c mice were corneally infected with hsv-1,strain kos-gfp; a topical eye drop treatment of l-psicose was started 24 h after infection and continued four times daily for ten consecutive days. the severity of hsk was monitored by slit lamp examination in a masked fashion and infectious hsv-1 shedding was determined by pra. results l-psicose was found to have anti-viral activity in vitro at an ic50 dose of 99.5 mm and an ic90 dose of 160 mm. topical eye drop treatment with 200 mm l-psicose in pbs solution significantly reduced the severity of hsk compared to the mock treatment group. the in vivo mouse ocular model results of l-psicose therapy correlated with accelerated clearance of virus from eye swabs. conclusion the results suggest that topical treatment with rare sugar l-psicose has efficacy against hsk through inhibition of hsv-1. © 2016 the authors