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Neem tree may hold clues for HIV treatment
An Indian origin researcher, Sonia Arora, an assistant professor at Kean University in New Jersey has hinted that extracts from
Neem Tree, profuse in tropical and subtropical areas, may thwart the virus from
multiplying. Sonia Arora is delving into understanding the curative properties of the neem tree in
fighting the virus that causes Aids. She presented her data at a poster
session Sunday, April 22, 2012 at the Experimental Biology 2012 meeting in San Diego.
Her preliminary results seem to indicate that there are compounds in
neem extracts that target a protein essential for HIV to replicate. If
further studies support her findings, Arora's work may give clinicians
and drug developers a new HIV-AIDS therapy to pursue.
Neemleaves
Neem flowers
AIDS sysmbol
Extracts from neem leaves, bark and flowers are used throughout the
Indian subcontinent to fight against pathogenic bacteria and fungi. "The farther you
go into the villages of India, the more uses of neem you see," says
Arora. Tree branches are used instead of toothpaste and toothbrushes to
keep teeth and gums healthy, and neem extracts are used to control the spread of malaria.
Practitioners of Ayurvedic medicine, a form of traditional Indian
alternative medicine, even prescribe neem extracts, in combination with
other herbs, to treat cardiovascular diseases and control diabetes. The
neem tree, whose species name is Azadirachta indica and which belongs to the mahogany family, also grows in east Africa.
Arora's scientific training gave her expertise in the cellular biology
of cancer, pharmacology, bioinformatics and structural biology When she established her
laboratory with a new research direction at Kean University in 2008,
Arora decided to combine her knowledge with her long-time fascination with natural products.The neem tree beckoned.
Arora dived into the scientific literature to see what was known about
neem extracts. During the course of her reading, Arora stumbled across
two reports that showed that when HIV-AIDS patients in Nigeria and India were given neem extracts, the amount of HIV particles in their blood
dropped. Intrigued, Arora decided to see if she could figure out what was in the neem extract that seemed to fight off the virus.
She turned to bioinformatics and structural biology to see what insights
could be gleaned from making computer models of HIV proteins with compounds known to be in neem extracts. From the literature, she and her
students found 20 compounds present in various types of neem extracts.
When they modeled these compounds against the proteins critical for the
HIV life-cycle, Arora and her team discovered that most of the neem compounds attacked the HIV protease, a protein essential for making new
copies of the virus.
Arora's group is now working on test-tube experiments to see if the
computer models hold up with actual samples. If her work bears out, Arora is hopeful that the neem tree will give a cheaper and more
accessible way to fight the HIV-AIDS epidemic in developing countries,
where current therapies are priced at levels out of reach of many people. "And, of course," she notes, "there is the potential of
discovering new drugs based on the molecules present in neem." - Provided by American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology |
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