Ophthalmic Solutions with a Broad Antiviral Action: Evaluation of Their Potential against Ocular Herpetic Infections

Abstract

HSV-1 can be associated with severe and recurrent eye infections characterized by a strong inflammatory response that leads to blepharoconjunctivitis, epithelial and stromal keratitis, and retinal necrosis. The incidence of HSV-1 keratitis is 1.5 million every year worldwide, including more than 40,000 new cases exhibiting serious visual failures. Generally, the therapy uses antiviral drugs to promote healing; however, there are currently no compounds that are able to completely eradicate the virus. In addition, the phenomenon of resistance is rapidly spreading among HSV-1 strains, creating mutants developing resistance to the common antiviral drugs; therefore, deep research on this issue is warranted. The efficacy of different ophthalmic solutions already on the market was evaluated for reducing HSV-1 infection. Different plaque assays were set up on epithelial cells, revealing that two ophthalmic solutions were able to inhibit viral replication in the early stages of infection. The data were further confirmed by molecular tests analyzing the expression levels of the principal genes involved in HSV-1 infection, and a strong reduction was observed after only 1 min of eye-drop treatment. Collectively, these results suggested the use of ophthalmic solutions as potential antiviral options for the treatment of ocular herpetic infection.