A COMPARISON OF HUMAN-IMMUNODEFICIENCY-VIRUS TYPE-1 INHIBITION BY PARTIALLY PURIFIED AQUEOUS EXTRACTS OF CHINESE MEDICINAL HERBS

A multiple screening approach to detect compounds inhibitory to variou s aspects of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) life-cycl e has been applied to aqueous extracts of 19 herbs traditionally used in Chinese medicine as anti-viral agents. The extracts were tested for their ability to inhibit HIV-1 in a series of in vitro assays. The ex tracts were tested for inhibition of the interaction between HIV-1 gp1 20 and immobilized CD4 receptor, inhibition of recombinant HIV-1 rever se transcriptase and for inhibition of three glycohydrolase enzymes th at contribute to viral protein glycosylation. Six of the herb extracts (30%) were potent inhibitors of the interaction between HIV-1 gp120 a nd the CD4 receptor (ID50 5.6 - 79.4 mu g/ml), two extracts (10%) cont ained potent reverse transcriptase inhibitors (ID50 16.9 - 26.0 mu g/m l) and 14 extracts (75%) were able to inhibit at least one of the glyc ohydrolase enzymes. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Inc.