Ficus septica plant extracts for treating Dengue virus in vitro.

Nan-Chieh Huang,Jih-Jung Chen,You-Sheng Lin,Mei-Shu Huang,Wei-Yu Lin,Jing-Ru Weng,Wan-Ting Hung,Feng-Yi Lai,Tsung-Hsien Chang,Wei-Lun Tsai

doi:10.7717/peerj.3448

Abstract

Dengue virus types 1-4 (DENV-1-4) are positive-strand RNA viruses with an envelope that belongs to the Flaviviridae. DENV infection threatens human health worldwide. However, other than supportive treatments, no specific therapy is available for the infection. In order to discover novel medicine against DENV, we tested 59 crude extracts, without cytotoxicity, from 23 plants in vitro; immunofluorescence assay revealed that the methanol extracts of fruit, heartwood, leaves and stem from Ficus septica Burm. f. had a promising anti-DENV-1 and DENV-2 effect. However, infection with the non-envelope picornavirus, Aichi virus, was not inhibited by treatment with F. septica extracts. F. septica may be a candidate antiviral drug against an enveloped virus such as DENV.

Highlights

Dengue fever is an acute infectious disease caused by dengue virus (DENV), which is transmitted by mosquitoes to humans; about 50 million people are infected per year worldwide (Guzman et al, 2010)
We found that F. septica Burm. f. could be a potential medicinal plant against DENV
We aimed to reveal a medicinal plant candidate against DENV

Summary

Introduction

Dengue fever is an acute infectious disease caused by dengue virus (DENV), which is transmitted by mosquitoes to humans; about 50 million people are infected per year worldwide (Guzman et al, 2010). According to different serotypes of the virus, four types (DENV types 1-4) are divided. Each type has the ability to cause disease. DENV infection causes varying degrees of disease manifestation, such as self-limited febrile dengue fever, skin rash or drowsiness, agitation, liver enlargement, or dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) and even death. A second DENV infection may lead a life-threatening dengue shock syndrome (DSS) How to cite this article Huang et al (2017), Ficus septica plant extracts for treating Dengue virus in vitro.

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