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

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