Studies on the Chemical Constituents and Anti-Influenza Virus Principles from Taxillus Genus Plants---Taxillus tsaii, T. parasitica and T. balansae (I-III)

In USA, Europe, Japan, and Taiwan there are on average over 100 million people infected with influenza every year, which means that every year, 1 out of every 10 adults and 1 out of every 3 children are infected. The influenza viruses are extremely mutative and can generate drug-resisting viruses. Hence, the development of new drugs is continuously demanding new attention. There are currently two classes of drugs which can treat influenza A virus. The first class is amantadine and rimantadine, which work by suppressing the uncoating of virus. The second class of drugs are Zanamivir and Oseltmavir, which work by suppressing neuraminidase (NA) so that the virus will not be released and contaminate other cells. However, these two types of drugs also have the tendency of generating drug-resisting strains, as well as neurological side effects. In our studies on the anti-influenza virus of natural sources, several species have been screened at present. Among them, we found the methanolic crude extracts of Taxillus tsaii, T. parasitica and T. balansae at 10 g/ml showed more efficiency against influenza virus (H1N1) than Tamiflu (0.5 g/ml). We are also interested in investigating the constituents and bioactivities of T. tsaii, T. parasitica and T. balansae due to the less of phytochemical studies. This study aims to look for bioactive anti-influenza virus principles from T. tsaii, T. parasitica and T. balansae by virtue of bioassay-directed isolation and structural elucidation. These results can prove that whether these mistletoe plants of Loranthaceae could be used in the same therapeutic purpose.

Project ID:PC9902-0243
External Project ID:NSC97-2320-B182-005-MY3