Novel anti-hepatitis B virus-active catechin and epicatechin from Rhus tripartita

Mohammad K Parvez; Mohammed S Al-Dosari; Mazin A S Abdelwahid; Ali S Alqahtani; Abdullah R Alanzi

doi:10.3892/etm.2022.11325

Novel anti-hepatitis B virus-active catechin and epicatechin from Rhus tripartita

Exp Ther Med. 2022 Jun;23(6):398. doi: 10.3892/etm.2022.11325. Epub 2022 Apr 15.

Authors

Mohammad K Parvez¹, Mohammed S Al-Dosari¹, Mazin A S Abdelwahid², Ali S Alqahtani¹, Abdullah R Alanzi¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pharmacognosy, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.
² Department of Organic Chemistry, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8577, Japan.

Abstract

Bioactive natural or phytoproducts have emerged as a potential source of antiviral agents. Of the Rhus spp., R. coriaria and R. succedanea have been reported for their antiviral activities against hepatitis B virus (HBV), while the anti-HBV efficacy of R. tripartita has remained elusive. In the present study, the anti-HBV activities of R. tripartita-derived novel catechin [3,5,13,14-flavantetrol-catechin or rhuspartin (RPT)] and epicatechin-3-O-rhamnoside (ECR), were assessed using the HBV-reporter cell line HepG2.2.15. RPT and ECR proved to efficiently inhibit HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) synthesis by 68.8 and 71.3%, respectively, and HBV pre-core antigen (HBeAg) production by 62.3 and 71.2%, respectively, after 5 days of treatment. Of note, RPT had a lower anti-HBV activity than ECR. In comparison, the reference drug lamivudine (LAM) inhibited HBsAg and HBeAg expression by 83.6 and 85.4%, respectively. Further molecular docking analysis revealed formations of strong complexes of RPT, ECR and LAM with HBV polymerase through interactions with binding pocket residues. Taken together, the present results demonstrated promising therapeutic potential of the novel R. tripartita-derived catechin and epicatechin for HBV, warranting their further molecular and pharmacological evaluation.

Keywords: HepG2.2.15 cell; Rhus tripartita; anti-HBV; catechin; epicatechin; hepatitis B virus.

Grants and funding

Funding: The authors gratefully acknowledge the Researchers Supporting Project (grant no. RSP-2021/379), King Saud University (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) for supporting this work.