Papillomavirus microbicidal activities of high-molecular-weight cellulose sulfate, dextran sulfate, and polystyrene sulfonate

The high-molecular-weight sulfated or sulfonated polysaccharides or polymer s cellulose sulfate, dextran sulfate, and polystyrene sulfonate were tested for microbicidal activity against bovine papillomavirus type 1 (BPV-1) and human papillomavirus type 11 (HPV-11) and type 40 (HPV-40). In vitro assay s included the BPV-1-induced focus-forming assay and transient infection of human A431 cells with HPVs. The compounds were tested for microbicidal act ivity directly by preincubation with virus prior to addition to cell cultur es and indirectly by addition of virus to compound-treated cells and to vir us-coated cells to test inactivation of the virus after virus-cell binding. The data indicated that all three compounds showed direct microbicidal act ivity with 50% effective concentrations between 10 to 100 mug/ml. These con centrations were nontoxic to cell cultures for both assays. When a clone of C127 cells was tested for microbicidal activity, approximately 10-fold-les s compound was required to achieve a 50% reduction in BPV-1-induced foci th an for the uncloned parental C127 cells. Pretreatment of cells with compoun d prior to addition of virus also demonstrated strong microbicidal activity with dextran sulfate and polystyrene sulfonate, but cellulose sulfate requ ired several orders of magnitude more compound for virus inactivation. Poly styrene sulfonate prevented subsequent infection of HPV-11 after virus-cell binding, and this inactivation was observed up to 4 h after addition of vi rus. These data indicate that the polysulfated and polysulfonated compounds may be useful nontoxic microbicidal compounds that are active against a va riety of sexually transmitted disease agents including papillomaviruses.