Hepatitis C is a serious health issue and cause liver disorders in millions of people. Available therapeutic agents require long term administration with numerous side effects. Therefore, there is a dire need to find alternative treatment options for this disease. Since ancient times, medicinal plants are widely used to cure various diseases with no or less harmful effects. Therefore, this study was designed to find out phytochemicals and investigate antiviral activity of methanol extract of Ajuga bracteosa, Ajuga parviflora, Berberis lycium and Citrus lemon against Hepatitis C Virus (HCV infection). Phytochemical analysis of the plant extract was performed using various chemical tests. Toxicity of the plant extract was determined against using trypan blue exclusion method. Antiviral activity of the selected plant extract was find out against HCV infected HepG2 cells. For this purpose, HepG2 cells were seeded with HCV positive and negative serum and nontoxic doses of plant extract for 24 and 48 h. After this RNA was extracted and viral load was determined using Real-time PCR. Phytochemical analysis showed the presence of flavonoids and phenols in all plant extracts while amino acids, alkaloids and tannins were present in B. lycium and saponins were detected in C. lemon. Toxicity assay showed that all plant extracts were nontoxic at maximum concentration of 200 μg/ml except B. lycium, which showed mild toxicity at 40 μg/ml and were extremely toxic at 60 μg/ml and above doses. Real-time PCR quantitation result revealed that after 24 h treatments A. parviflora showed highest antiviral activity, followed by A. bracteosa, while B. lycium extract had low (35%) and C. lemon has no antiviral effects. The 48 h treatments showed an increase antiviral activity by A. bracteosa followed by A. parviflora and B. lycium while C. lemon showed negative effect. Our results depicted that mentioned plants might be used as an alternative therapeutic regime or in combination with existing treatments against HCV.
NSAIDs are the most consumable class of drugs used in daily life for a number of ailments like analgesia, anti-inflammatory, antipyretic effect. One of the racemic NSAIDs of the parent drug ibuprofen is Dexibuprofen. As reported in numerous studies, Dexibuprofen is more potent in effect. Dexibuprofen can be interchanged in the clinical practice. This research focuses on the comparative analysis of different commercial brands of Dexibuprofen from different perspectives, including physicochemical properties, pharmacokinetic properties, and pharmacopeial properties. A comparison of Dexibuprofen will provide significant aspects of this product and show its cost effectiveness and interchangeability. Different tests were performed on six marketed common brands of Dexibuprofen. The results were compared and analyzed using different statistical tools and presented in tables are graphs. All the brands followed USP/BP guidelines and their properties lie within acceptable ranges, it has been observed in research through statistical tools that all these six brands in terms of hardness, thickness, weight variation, and dissolution profile (at different pH media) showed significance, which indicates that all the brands have similarities in their properties and significant variations in drug performance of all marketed brands in different pH as dissolution medium at different time intervals. Although in certain points of percentages the results indicate the superiority of brands 01 (DS) in many properties but due to the high price of this brand it might not be preferred in common population, while study concludes that all brands are similar in comparative analysis in different properties and followed by guidelines, they exhibit acceptable properties and are safe to use.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.