| Abstract: | AIDS is a global pandemic that has seen the development of novel and effective treatments to improve the quality of life of those infected and reduction in the spread of the disease. While great advancements have been made in HIV/AIDS therapeutics, there is still no cure or viable vaccine in development. The high rate of HIV-1 mutation contributing to virus immune escape, combined with increase in sexual transmission and the significant clinical therapeutics side effects of the currently available treatments highlights the need for novel therapeutics with broad anti-viral activity against both CXCR4(X4) and CCR5(R5)-tropic viruses. In our search for novel modalities against HIV infection, we investigated several aqueous extracts from Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM) collection and identified Sargassum fusiforme(S. fusiforme) as a potent inhibitor of HIV infection. Following the Western approach of drug discovery and development, we isolated several bioactive molecules from S. fusiforme and determined their mechanism of action. TCM and Western approaches to disease treatment and drug development have been shown to be complementary to each other. The former provides a rich medicinal history for natural compounds that can have clinical impact on a variety of illnesses, while the latter enables the application of chemical informatics with rational drug design approach coupled to mechanistic underpinnings of such therapeutics. This multistep paradigm is demonstrated in the example of S. fusiforme as a treatment to prevent HIV infection, as described in this review. |
