Antivirals From Plants

Charles Gavette timbukt2 at excite.com
Thu Mar 25 21:33:00 EST 1999


I remember reading of how the fresh growing tops of certain plants were used
to bathe newborn infants by Native American women as a method to protect the
skin. The external flavonoids found on the aerial parts of plants are highly
regarded by herbalists. Thus, there may be antiviral-like activity found in
plant extracts that could theoretically be used for larval hygiene. On the
other hand they may also act as a feeding deterrent. I would be quite
surprised if we found not a single method of virus control from plants. Can
the Polyhedrosis virus be cultured on plates? If so, simple tests may give
one some answers. If this is the major virus in Lepidoptera, what is its
viability on inanimate surfaces? A few plants to investigate may be the
pawpaw (Asimina triloba) for its annonaceous acetogenins(from seeds and
bark), some of which have been found to be a million times more potent than
adriamycin. Also the ubiquitous and mostly overlooked Selfheal(Prunella
vulgaris), whose triterpene prunellin is a reverse transcriptase inhibitor
of HIV/AIDS, Herpes Simplex I & II, HBV, and I believe Epstein-Barr Virus.
Unlike the polysaccharides found in many fungi, triterpenes are not as
easily cleaved in the stomach of humans, thus increasing its efficacy in the
system as to delivery of the active compound. Can this happen in
Lepidopteran systems, too? Could one actually produce a coated antiviral
substance that could get past the taste preferences of a larva and act as a
pill.? If so, then, "What is the LD-50? Since we are still finding new
compounds every few months from the commonest of plants, it may be a good
idea to acquaint oneself with the actual phyto-compounds of the host plants
for each species. Has anyone studied the correlations between the number of
proven antiviral compounds in a host plant of a species and records of virus
infection? Both UV irradiation and internal medicine(where the virus may
actually be replicating) would seem to be a sound strategy.




_______________________________________________________
Get your free, private email at http://mail.excite.com/


More information about the Leps-l mailing list