Study on Anti-HIV-1 Activity of Wuweilingqi Capsule in Vitro / 中国中医药信息杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the activity of Wuweilingqi capsule alone and the synergy with other anti-HIV-1 inhibitors against various HIV-1 isolates,and investigate its immunological impacts for CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. Method Wuweilingqi capsule was extracted from a traditional Chinese medicine recipe which contains 5 herbs,it showed anti-retroviral activity in vitro in the cultures of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and T cell lines (H9 and MT2). Results Wuweilingqi capsule inhibited HIV-1018a (an AZT-sensitive clinical isolate) in PBMC and HTLV-ⅢB (a HIV-1 lab isolate) in H9 and MT-2 T cell lines markedly,and the therapeutic indexes (TI) were 96,84 and 181 separately,but weakly inhibitory activity against HIV-1018c (an AZT-resistant clinical isolate) and chronically infective HTLV-ⅢB were demonstrated. Significant synergy against HIV-1018a and HIV-1018c replication between Wuweilingqi capsule and AZT,indinavir or T-20 were observed. In addition,Wuweilingqi capsule significantly increased PBMC proliferation,interferon-gamma secreting cell number with or without a stimulation of PHA or candida. Conclusion Although Wuweilingqi capsule did not show so strong anti-HIV-1 activity as known west drugs in clinical,its good synergy and significant increase of immune activity suggests that it will be an available and characteristic agent against HIV-1 replication.