Abstract
BackgroundPrevious data indicate that purified components of ginseng can inhibit HIV reverse transcriptase in vitro, suggesting that ginseng components in plasma may interfere with HIV-1 RNA detection assays.MethodsPre- and post-dose plasma from three volunteers dosed with 3000 mg American ginseng was spiked with HIV and analyzed by the Roche COBAS Ampliprep/Taqman v2.0 HIV-1 RNA assay.ResultsPresence of American ginseng had no significant effect on measured HIV-1 RNA concentration. Variation within pre- and post-dose plasma pair was insignificant and within assay performance limits.ConclusionPlasma from subjects dosed with 3000 mg American ginseng does not interfere with the Roche COBAS Ampliprep/Taqman v2.0 HIV-1 RNA assay. This implies that in vitro inhibition of HIV reverse transcriptase by American ginseng components is unlikely to be clinically relevant.
Highlights
Previous data indicate that purified components of ginseng can inhibit HIV reverse transcriptase in vitro, suggesting that ginseng components in plasma may interfere with HIV-1 RNA detection assays
We tested our hypothesis by measuring the performance of the Roche COBAS Ampliprep/Taqman v2.0 HIV-1 RNA assay [4] in plasma of volunteers receiving high-dose American ginseng
In all three plasma pairs (Table 1), the presence of American ginseng had no significant effect on measured plasma HIV-1 RNA concentrations
Summary
Previous data indicate that purified components of ginseng can inhibit HIV reverse transcriptase in vitro, suggesting that ginseng components in plasma may interfere with HIV-1 RNA detection assays. Data from the literature suggests that it is unlikely that protein components of orally-dosed ginseng are bioavailable at relevant concentrations, or survive the processing required to quantify plasma HIV-1 RNA concentrations [4,5]. These findings raised concerns that ginseng components may interfere with reverse transcriptase-dependent assays used to determine plasma HIV-1 RNA concentration, and potentially confound clinical management of this disease. We tested our hypothesis by measuring the performance of the Roche COBAS Ampliprep/Taqman v2.0 HIV-1 RNA assay [4] in plasma of volunteers receiving high-dose American ginseng
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