Division of Molecular Medicine, National Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan.
Virol J. 2011 Jan 19;8:26. doi: 10.1186/1743-422X-8-26.
Hepatitis C is a major health problem causes liver cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma and death. The current treatment of standard interferon in combination with ribavirin, has limited benefits due to emergence of resistant mutations during long-term treatment, adverse side effects and high cost. Hence, there is a need for the development of more effective, less toxic antiviral agents.
The present study was designed to search anti-HCV plants from different areas of Pakistan. Ten medicinal plants were collected and tested for anti-HCV activity by infecting the liver cells with HCV 3a innoculum. Methanol and chloroform extracts of Solanum nigrum (SN) seeds exhibited 37% and more than 50% inhibition of HCV respectively at non toxic concentration. Moreover, antiviral effect of SN seeds extract was also analyzed against HCV NS3 protease by transfecting HCV NS3 protease plasmid into liver cells. The results demonstrated that chloroform extract of SN decreased the expression or function of HCV NS3 protease in a dose- dependent manner and GAPDH remained constant.
These results suggest that SN extract contains potential antiviral agents against HCV and combination of SN extract with interferon will be better option to treat chronic HCV.
丙型肝炎是一个主要的健康问题，可导致肝硬化、肝细胞癌和死亡。目前的标准治疗是干扰素联合利巴韦林，但由于长期治疗中出现耐药突变、不良反应和高成本，其疗效有限。因此，需要开发更有效、毒性更低的抗病毒药物。
本研究旨在从巴基斯坦不同地区寻找抗 HCV 植物。采集了 10 种药用植物，并用 HCV 3a 接种物感染肝细胞来检测其抗 HCV 活性。黑茄（SN）种子的甲醇和氯仿提取物在非毒性浓度下分别对 HCV 表现出 37%及以上的抑制作用。此外，还通过将 HCV NS3 蛋白酶质粒转染入肝细胞来分析 SN 种子提取物对 HCV NS3 蛋白酶的抗病毒作用。结果表明，SN 的氯仿提取物以剂量依赖的方式降低 HCV NS3 蛋白酶的表达或功能，而 GAPDH 保持不变。
这些结果表明，SN 提取物中含有潜在的抗 HCV 抗病毒药物，将 SN 提取物与干扰素联合使用将是治疗慢性 HCV 的更好选择。
