African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious disease and provokes severe economic losses and health threats. At present no effective
vaccine or treatment is available to prevent or cure ASF. Consequently, there is an urgent need to develop effective drugs against ASF virus (ASFV).
Chlorine dioxide (
ClO2), an ideal
biocide, has broad-spectrum antibacterial activity and no drug resistance. Here, we found that
ClO2 strongly inhibited ASFV replication in porcine alveolar macrophages (PAMs). The inhibitory effect of
ClO2 occurred during viral attachment rather than entry, indicating that
ClO2 suppressed the early stage of virus life cycle.
ClO2 showed a potent anti-ASFV effect when added either before, simultaneously with, or after
virus infection. Furthermore,
ClO2 could destroy viral
nucleic acids and
proteins, which may contribute to its capacity of inactivating ASFV virions. The minimum concentration of degradation of ASFV
nucleic acids by
ClO2 is 1.2 μg/mL, and the degradation is a temperature-dependent manner. These have guiding significance for
ClO2 prevention and control of ASFV
infection in pig farms. In addition,
ClO2 decreased the expression of ASFV-induced inflammatory
cytokines. Overall, our findings suggest that
ClO2 may be an ideal candidate for the development of novel anti-ASFV prophylactic and therapeutic drugs in swine industry.