Anywar Godwin, Akram Muhammad, Chishti Muhammad Amjad
Department of Plant Sciences, Microbiology and Biotechnology, College of Natural Sciences, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.
Department of Eastern Medicine, Government College University Faisalabad, Faisalabad, Pakistan.
Front Pharmacol. 2021 Aug 25;12:703837. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2021.703837. eCollection 2021.
The worldwide burden of viral infections has triggered a resurgence in the search for new and more efficient antiviral drugs. Scientists are also repurposing existing natural compounds such as the antimalarial drug artemisinin from L. as potential drug candidates for some of the emerging and re-emerging viral infections such as covid-19 The aim of this review was to analyse the existing literature to explore the actual or potential natural antiviral compounds from African and Asian medicinal plants as lead compounds in the drug discovery process. We searched the literature on African and Asian medicinal plant species as antiviral agents for HIV-1 and the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in various databases and search engines such as Web of Science, Google Scholar and PubMed. The search was limited to , , and clinical studies and excluded studies. We present 16 plant species with actual or potential antiviral activity against HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2. These plant species span the continents of Africa and Asia where they are widely used for treating several other ailments. Natural compounds from plants can play a significant role in the clinical management of HIV/AIDS and the covid-19 pandemic. More research needs to be conducted to investigate the potential toxicities of the various compounds and their efficacies in clinical settings.
全球病毒感染负担引发了对新型高效抗病毒药物的新一轮探索。科学家们也在重新利用现有天然化合物，比如从青蒿中提取的抗疟药物青蒿素，作为治疗一些新出现和再次出现的病毒感染（如新冠病毒）的潜在候选药物。本综述的目的是分析现有文献，以探索来自非洲和亚洲药用植物的实际或潜在天然抗病毒化合物，作为药物发现过程中的先导化合物。我们在多个数据库和搜索引擎（如科学网、谷歌学术和PubMed）中搜索了关于非洲和亚洲药用植物物种作为抗HIV-1和新型冠状病毒（SARS-CoV-2）抗病毒剂的文献。搜索限于 、 以及临床研究，并排除 研究。我们列出了16种对HIV-1和SARS-CoV-2具有实际或潜在抗病毒活性的植物物种。这些植物物种分布在非洲和亚洲大陆，在当地被广泛用于治疗多种其他疾病。植物中的天然化合物在HIV/AIDS临床管理和新冠疫情中可发挥重要作用。需要开展更多研究来调查各种化合物的潜在毒性及其在临床环境中的疗效。
