Effect of drugs on Ca2 + influx and CVB3-RNA replication in cultured rat heart cells infected with CVB3

he effect of Verapamil(Ver),Astragalus membranaceus(AM),Dexamethasone(Dex)on Ca￣(2+) influx across the myocardial plasma membrane and coxsackie virus B3(CVB3)-RNA replica-tion in cultured neonatal rat heart cells infected with CVB3 was investigated.It was found thatthe Ca￣(2+) influx could be decreased significantly (p< 0.01)by Ver,AM,Dex after infection for48h.In addtion,the aniounts of CVB3-RNA in cultured heart cells infected with CVB3、and treat-ed with AM for 48h simultaneously were significantly decreased as compared with the heart cellsinfected with CVB3 only(p< 0.001) and it was significantly higher in myocytes infected withCVB3 and treated with Ver than in myocytes only infected with CVB,(p< 0.01).These resultsdemonstrated that the above three drugs could exert the effect of decreasing the secondary dam-ages caused by Ca￣(2+)influx,but their effects on replication of CVB3-RNA in myocardium werequite different:AM inhibited replicantion of CVB3+RNA.