Abstract
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) belonging to the family Flaviviridae has infected 3% of the population worldwide and 6% of the population in Pakistan. The only recommended standard treatment is pegylated INF-α plus ribavirin. Due to less compatibility of the standard treatment, thirteen medicinal plants were collected from different areas of Pakistan on the basis of undocumented antiviral reports against different viral infections. Medicinal plants were air dried, extracted and screened out against HCV by infecting HCV inoculums of 3a genotype in liver cells. RT-PCR results demonstrate that acetonic and methanolic extract of Acacia nilotica (AN) showed more than 50% reduction at non toxic concentration. From the above results, it can be concluded that by selecting different molecular targets, specific structure-activity relationship can be achieved by doing mechanistic analysis. So, additional studies are required for the isolation and recognition of antiviral compound in AN to establish its importance as antiviral drug against HCV. For further research, we will scrutinize the synergistic effect of active antiviral compound in combination with standard PEG INF-α and ribavirin which may be helpful in exploring further gateways for antiviral therapy against HCV.
Highlights
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a global health problem annually affecting 180 million people worldwide [1]
Cellular Toxicity through MTT cell proliferation assay Before starting the antiviral screening against Hepatitis C virus, toxicological effects of thirteen plant extracts were determined through MTT proliferation assay
Similar results were observed for Discussion The significant prevalence of HCV infection, lack of virusspecific treatment and less compatibility of authenticated therapy suggest in exploring the medicinal plants with the aim of seeking suitable antiviral compounds
Summary
HCV is a global health problem annually affecting 180 million people worldwide [1]. 10 million (6% of the population) individuals are affected from HCV in Pakistan [2]. HCV belongs to the family Flaviviridae which is enveloped viruses harboring positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome [4,5]. Whole viral genome is 9.6 kb nucleotides long encoding a large polyprotein precursor, which is cleaved by several viral and cellular proteases into different structural and non structural proteins (NS) [4,5]. NS proteins (NS2, NS3, NS4A, NS4B, NS5A, and NS5B) are formed at the NS2-NS3 intersection by the NS2-3 metalloprotease and at the downstream position of NS3 by the NS3 serine protease [9,10,11,12,13]
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