Abstract
Background Micronutrients are essential for the body to produce enzymes, hormones and other substances essential for proper growth and development. Iodine, potassium iodide and ascorbic acid are ones of the most important in global public health terms. However, their lack represents a major threat to the human and animal health.
Methodology Antiviral, cytotoxic and mutagenic activity of commercially available micronutrient combination consisting of iodine, ascorbic acid, potassium iodide and excipients was evaluated. Commercial preparation of micronutrient combination was compared with self-prepared micronutrient preparation. MTT assay was used to evaluate the cytotoxicity of all the preparation. Confluent monolayer of Chicken Embryo Fibroblasts grown in 96-well cell culture plates were treated with ten concentrations of each preparation in triplicate manner and was used to determine the viability of the cells and cell survival percentage. Antiviral efficacy was determined against influenza virus H9N1 strain by virus infection and subsequent cell viability assay. Furthermore, mutagenicity was measured by bacterial reverse mutation analysis by Ames test using two strains of Salmonella typhimurium TA100 and TA 98 with and without S9. After appropriate incubation, number of revertant colonies per plate were counted in triplicate manner and MF was calculated.
Results Our combination showed cytotoxicity at doses higher than 11.71ug/ml while showed significant antiviral efficacy at concentrations of 11.71ug/ml, 5.86ug/ml, 2.93ug/ml and 1.4ug/ml which faded away at lower dilutions. Commercially available preparation was found to be non-mutagenic in our experiment.
Conclusions Combination consisting of iodine, ascorbic acid, potassium iodide is effective in the treatment of viral infections.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
