Therapeutic potential of Solanum surattense against hepatitis C virus in liver hepatoma cells

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) causes chronic liver disease (CLD) and severe morbidity and mortality worldwide. For chronically infected HCV patients, direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) are the standard therapy. HCV treatment is still hindered by drug resistance due to resistance-associated substitutions (RASs). New, innovative, and cost-effective anti-HCV drugs must be developed immediately. Therefore, this work employed different extracts of Solanum surattense (S. surattense) against full-length HCV-3a genome and HCV-NS3 plasmids in liver hepatoma cells at nontoxic concentrations to evaluate the therapeutic potential of the leaves and flowers of S. surattense. Data shows that the leaf extract effectively inhibited HCV-3a replication by 62% and 84% at 50µg/mL and 100µg/mL concentrations, respectively, compared to the control daclatasvir, which reduced HCV replication by 70% at 100 nM (p<0.000). At a 50 µg/mL concentration, the flower and leaf extracts significantly inhibited HCV-NS3 gene expression (p<0.000). Molecular docking investigations confirmed the in vitro results and showed that quercetin 3-glycoside, delphinidin 3,5-diglycoside, and catechin bound to HCV-NS3 protein (helicasee and protease domains) far superior to the positive control. In addition, both herbal extracts showed HepG2 cytotoxicity. The findings suggest that S. surattense may be a better HCV and HCC inhibitor and requires further study.