An In-vitro evaluation of a polyherbal formulation, against SARS-Cov-2
Authors
Divya Kanchibhotla
aSri Sri Institute for Advanced Research, India
Saumya Subramanian
aSri Sri Institute for Advanced Research, India
Reddy Kumar
bSri Sri Tattva, India
KR Hari
bSri Sri Tattva, India
Monika Pathania
cDepartment of Medicine, AIIMS Rishikesh, India
Keywords:
Polyherbal, Ayurvedic, COVID-19, NOQ19
Abstract
In the last two years, COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has created a mass destruction among humanity causing a major health crisis around the world. With the emergence of new strains of the virus, lack of targeted drugs and antimicrobial resistance, there is a dire need to discover specific antiviral with minimum side effects targeted against COVID-19.
Objective
The present study evaluates the antiviral efficacy of a novel Ayurvedic polyherbal formulation, NOQ19, composed of a 13 well known herbs, in a cell-based setting.
Methodology
Vero E6 (CL1008), the African green monkey kidney epithelial cell, were infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus (isolate USA–WA1/2020) in a 96 well-plate. NOQ19 test material was diluted at different concentration: 0.05 mg/ml, 0.1 mg/ml, 0.2 mg/ml, 0.3 mg/ml, 0.4 mg/ml, 0.5 mg/ml, 0.6 mg/ml, 0.7 mg/ml, 0.8 mg/ml and 0.9 mg/ml. These different concentrations of NOQ19 were added to infected cells respectively and incubated for 3 days in 5% CO2 incubator. Remdesivir was used as a positive control. The cells were finally fixed with formaldehyde, stained with crystal violet and plaques were visualized. The number of plaques were counted to determine the PFU(plaque forming units)/ml.
Results
The results of the present study demonstrated an excellent an antiviral efficacy of NOQ19 at 0.9 mg/ml concentration, eliminating 100% virus. The IC50 of the drug was found to be 0.2 mg/ml.
Conclusion
There is limited data around pre-clinical efficacy of polyherbal Ayurvedic drugs. Ayurvedic and herbal formations need to be tested in a preclinical setting to support the human data. The results of the present study demonstrated viral load reduction using NOQ19 in Vero E6 cell lines infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus. These result along with other preclinical and clinical trials could further evaluate the efficacy of NOQ19 as a potential therapeutic option in the fighting the COVID-19 challenge.
Keywords: Polyherbal, Ayurvedic, COVID-19, NOQ19
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