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Scientists study the anti-influenza virus activity of a traditional Vietnamese medicinal plant

07/31/2018 // Ralph Flores // Views

Tags: alternative medicine, antiviral, Chinese knotweed, Flu, goodhealth, goodmedicine, goodscience, herbal medicine, Herbs, influenza, natural cures, natural healing, natural medicine, natural remedies, Polygonum chinense Linn., research, Viruses

The active ingredients present in the Polygonum chinense Linn., commonly referred to as the Chinese knotweed, could be used to treat common influenza viruses, in a study published in BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Researchers from Vietnam and South Korea looked at metabolites present in P. chinense to determine their mechanisms of antiviral activity.

• Researchers used both the methanol (MeOH) extract and organic solvent layers of P. chinense for the study.
• The ethyl acetate layer, which exhibited antiviral activity, was subjected to repeated chromatography tests to extract eight pure metabolites, which were identified using NMR and MS spectral data.
• The anti-influenza activity of the metabolites was evaluated against the following virus strains: A/Puerto Rico/8/34 (H1N1, PR8), A/Hong Kong/8/68 (H3N2, HK) and B/Lee/40 (Lee). Researchers assessed the efficacy of each metabolite using cytopathic effect (CPE) and plaque inhibition assays, while other tests were conducted to determine each active ingredient's ideal mode-of-action.
• MeOH extracts possessed anti-influenza activity, with half maximal effective concentration (EC₅₀) values from 38.4–55.5 ?g/mL in a CPE inhibition assay. Three pure metabolites from P. chinense were able to inhibit viral replication in a dose-dependent manner, with an EC₅₀ value between 14.7–81.1 ?g/mL and CC50 values higher than 300 ?g/mL.

The findings suggest that P. chinense could be used to potentially inhibit influenza A and B viruses.

Read the full text of the study at this link.

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Journal Reference:

Tran TT, Kim M, Jang Y, Lee HW, Nguyen HT, Nguyen TN, Park HW, Dang QL, Kim J-C. CHARACTERIZATION AND MECHANISMS OF ANTI-INFLUENZA VIRUS METABOLITES ISOLATED FROM THE VIETNAMESE MEDICINAL PLANT POLYGONUM CHINENSE. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 21 March 2017;17(162). DOI: 10.1186/s12906-017-1675-6

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