Figure 7

The antiviral activity of aqueous Lamiaceae extracts extends to different R5 HIV-1 Envs VSV-G pseudotypes, and MoMLV. HIV-1 GFP reporter viruses, pseudotyped with either R5 HIV-1 Envs from (A) JR-FL, (B) YU-2, or (C, D) VSV-G, were exposed to peppermint extract at the indicated concentrations for 1 h at 37°C and subsequently added to TZM-bl cells. Cells were washed the following day and analyzed for GFP expression by flow cytometry on day 3 post infection. (E) Lemon balm extract was dialyzed overnight against water at molecular weight cut-offs of 3.5 kDa or 12 kDa and then tested for antiviral activity as described above. (F) Replication-competent ecotropic MoMLV-GFP was exposed to lemon balm extract prior to addition to primary rat T-cells. The level of infection of cultures was scored on day 4 post infection and the percentage of GFP-positive cells of solvent-treated controls was set to 100%. Experiments were performed in triplicate, and 2–3 independent experiments were conducted. Given are arithmetic means ± SD from one representative experiment (two independent experiments are shown for VSV-G).