Evaluation of the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase inhibitory properties of extracts from some medicinal plants in Kenya

Extracts from twenty two medicinal plants popularly used in preparing traditional remedies in Kenya were screened for activity against the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase. The screening procedure involved the use of tritium labeled thymidine triphosphate as the enzyme substrate and polyadenylic acid.oligodeoxythymidylic acid [poly(rA).p(dT)12-18] as the template primer dimer. Foscarnet was used as a positive control in these experiments. At a concentration of 100 microg/ml, extracts from eight of these plants showed at least 50 per cent reverse transcriptase inhibition. This activity was arbitrarily considered as significant. This indicates that there is the probability that some antiretroviral compounds could be identified and isolated from materials from these plants.