ABSTRACT
Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a serious health problem in Egypt. Although the effectiveness of pegylated interferon (peg-IFN) and ribavirin (RBV) combined therapy, poor response rates and lamentable tolerability were recorded in the chronically HCV infected patients. Sofosbuvir (SOF) target the highly conserved active site of the HCV-specific NS5B polymerase that affect directly the viral replication and has broad genotypic coverage. In the present study we investigated the efficacy of SOF-based combination therapy and its effects on the status of immune cells from chronically infected HCV Egyptian patients. HCV Patients were treated with a combination treatment of SOF, RBV and peg-IFN-α or SOF and RBV for either 12 or 24 weeks. Then biochemical, hematological parameters, immunological phenotyping, PBMCs proliferation and apoptosis were detected pre- and post-treatment. While SOF-based combination therapy improved the liver function, anemia, leucopenia and thrombocytopenia were detected especially after treatment with SOF, RBV and peg-IFN-α-2a.We observed significant reduction in the percentage of CD3+CD4+ and CD3+CD8+ cells post-treatment with either SOF and RBV or SOF, RBV and peg-IFN-α-2a as compared to the baseline. Moreover, SOF-based combination therapy altered the percentage of CD3-CD8+, CD14+ and CD20+ cells. The proliferative capacity of PBMCs was significantly decreased in both regimens, whilst the percentage of apoptotic cells was significantly augmented. SOF-based therapy regimens are efficacious in reducing HCV load in the current study with some adverse effects that include the reduction of the mononuclear cells from the blood periphery by apoptosis.
ABSTRACT
The objective of this study is to ascertain the potency of , Hibiscus rosa sinensis leaves extract,with 70% ethanol/ water, as potential natural antioxidant.The phytochemical screening identified the bioactive compounds of the dry extract; carbohydrates and/or glycosides, steroids and/or triterpenes, flavonoids and tannins.The total phenolic and the total flavonoids contents reached 48.4 mg catechol equivalent and 24.26 mg quercetin equivalent /g dry weight, respectively.We assayed in vitro total antioxidant capacity and reducing power of H. rosa extract (HRE), using butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and ascorbic acid (ASA) as references, respectively.HRE recorded two-fold stronger antioxidant capacity than that of BHT while its reducing power was less than that of ASA, with reaction time and extract concentration dependent manner. In addition we evaluated the scavenging activities of HRE for O2 •−, H2O2 and NO compared to that of butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA). BHA recorded up to (61.6%), (65.8%), and (37.3%), respectively, at 500 μg/ml. Scavenging ability of HRE was very closed to that of BHA, in case of O2 •− ( 60.4%) and NO ( 36.3%) while it was lower in case of H2O2 (48.5%). Finally, we investigate the protection effect of HRE against lipid peroxidation (LPO) and protein oxidation(PO) using Fe+3/ ascorbate oxidizing system. LPO shwed 2.5-fold increase while PO reduced 56% of –SH groups. The co-incubation of Fe+3/ascorbate with Hibiscus extract inhibited lipid and protein oxidative damage nearly with 31%, at 500 μg/ml. So, we can conclude that the in vitro study emphasized HRE effective antioxidant and scavenging activities which may be due to its phenolics and flavonoids contents.