Some Medicinal Plant Extracts Exhibit Potency against Viral Hepatitis C

Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is gaining increasing attention as a global health crisis. HCV may lead to a substantial health and, consequently, economic burden over the next 10-20 years. Aim of the work: This research seeks to demonstrate antiviral activity of naturally derived extracts on HCV. Aqueous extracts of Milk thistle (MSE) as well as lyophilized juice of ginger were tested in-vitro at different concentrations (100, 200, 300, and 400μg/ml) using the HepG2 cell line infected with HCV. Inhibition of viral replication was detected by the amplification of viral RNA using the reverse transcriptase (RT)PCR technique. Both the MSE and juice were considered active upon inhibiting the viral replication inside the HCV-infected HepG2 cells, as evidenced by the disappearance of the (+) and/or (-) strands of viral RNAamplified products detected by RT-PCR (compared with the positive control). Results: The effective anti-viral dose was 100 μg /ml for Ginger and 300 μg /m l for MSE. Conclusion: This study provides results justifying preclinical evaluation of the tested extracts as antiviral therapy for HCV infections.