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Anti‐HIV‐1 activities in extracts from some medicinal plants as assessed in an in vitro biochemical HIV‐1 reverse transcriptase assay
Author(s) -
Kanyara J. N.,
Njagi E. N. M.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
phytotherapy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.019
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1099-1573
pISSN - 0951-418X
DOI - 10.1002/ptr.1536
Subject(s) - reverse transcriptase , microtiter plate , in vitro , biology , enzyme , ic50 , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , medicinal plants , biochemistry , virology , microbiology and biotechnology , polymerase chain reaction , botany , gene
An in vitro HIV‐1 reverse transcriptase (RT) assay was used for screening of anti‐HIV activity of extracts obtained from some Kenyan medicinal plants. The assay utilises [ 3 H]‐methyl thymidine triphosphate (dTTP) as the enzyme substrate and polyadenylic acid.oligodeoxythymidylic acid [poly(rA).p(dT) 12–18 ] as the template‐primer dimmer. This assay was optimised and standardised with respect to the various experimental parameters in a microtiter plate methodology. The assay was then applied to test for potential antiviral activities of several Kenyan medicinal plant extracts and the concentrations producing 50% inhibition (IC 50 ) of the HIV‐1 RT were determined. This assay is described in this report and results obtained with some of the extracts are presented. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.