A microtiter virus yield reduction assay for the evaluation of antiviral compounds against human cytomegalovirus and herpes simplex virus.

Although the virus yield reduction assay is a powerful technique for evaluating the efficacy of antiviral compounds, it is not routinely utilized due to its labor-intensive nature. This procedure was modified, developed, thereby reducing greatly the time and effort required to perform yield reduction assays. Monolayer cultures of mammalian cells were grown in 96-well microtiter tissue culture plates and infected with virus. Test compounds were added and serially diluted directly with the plates. Following a cycle of virus replication, culture lysates were made and serially diluted in a separate set of uninfected cultures grown in microtiter plates. The cultures were incubated, plaques were enumerated in wells containing 5 to 20 plaques, and virus titers were calculated. To illustrate the use of the assay the known antiviral drugs acyclovir and ganciclovir were evaluated using this procedure. Ninety percent inhibitory concentrations for the respective drugs were 3 microM and 0.7 microM against herpes simplex virus type 1 and 60 microM and 1 microM against human cytomegalovirus.