title: Model-based evaluation of 5 Chinese medicine recipes in the treatment of H5N1 influenza virus infection in BALB/c mice.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate whether Chinese medicine (CM) recipes could ameliorate H5N1 influenza virus infection in BALB/c mice model.
  
  
  METHODS
  BALB/c mice were orally administrated with 5 CM recipes (removing toxin, tonifying qi, cooling blood, laxation, and compound recipes), oseltamivir, or saline solution respectively for 5 consecutive days after the infection of H5N1 influenza virus. Series of indices were employed to evaluate the amelioration of the 5 CM recipes on infection, including clinical assessment, gross observation, histopathologic findings, cytokine levels and viral burden in the lungs.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Two CM recipes (cooling blood and compound recipes) could postpone the death period of the mice infected with high-dose H5N1 influenza virus (P< 0.05). And for the mice infected with low-dose H5N1 influenza virus, CM recipes could significantly reduce the mortality and inhibit viral proliferation in the lungs as compared with the control group (P<0.05). There was no significant difference in lung coefficients between the treatment and the control groups, but histopathological findings in the lungs were improved in CM recipes groups compared to control group findings. A transient increase was observed in pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines during the first 6 days of infection. The levels of interleukin (IL)-12p40 and interferon-gamma of the treatment groups were significantly lower than that of the control group at day 3 post-infection (P<0.05), while only compound recipe were significantly lower in level of tumor necrosis factor alpha than the control (P<0.05). The level of IL-10 of the control was higher than others, and the differences between the control and cooling blood, removing toxin recipes were significant (P<0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Results of this study suggested the potentials of the CM recipes in ameliorating influenza virus infection by suppressing viral proliferations, improving histopathological lesions, and inhibition of over expression of inflammatory cytokines.
authors.affiliation: Guangdong Laboratory Animals Monitoring Institute, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Laboratory Animals, Guangzhou, 510663, China.
authors.forename: Fan-Gui
authors.initials: FG
authors.lastname: Min
authors.affiliation: Guangdong Laboratory Animals Monitoring Institute, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Laboratory Animals, Guangzhou, 510663, China. zhangyugzh@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Guangdong Laboratory Animals Monitoring Institute, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Laboratory Animals, Guangzhou, 510663, China.
authors.forename: Xiang-Mei
authors.initials: XM
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Shenzhen-Hong Kong Institute of Infectious Disease, Shenzhen Third People's Hospital, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, 518020, China.
authors.forename: Guo-Liang
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Shenzhen-Hong Kong Institute of Infectious Disease, Shenzhen Third People's Hospital, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, 518020, China.
authors.forename: Qiao
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Shenzhen-Hong Kong Institute of Infectious Disease, Shenzhen Third People's Hospital, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, 518020, China.
authors.forename: Guang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Nie
keywords: BALB/c mice; Chinese medicine recipe; H5N1 influenza virus; infection