Inhibitory effects of anti-SARS traditional Chinese medicines on the UV irradiation of lambda-lysogen.

By using lambda-lysogen as a model, the inhibitory effects of anti-severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) prescription I on the UV irradiation were investigated in this present study. It was found that the prescription I possessed obvious inhibitory effects on the UV induction of lambda-lysogen, the inhibitory rate reaching 83.87%. Among five medicinal herbs prescribed in that formula, Herba Patriniae, Radix Astragali and Radix Glycyrrhizae played important roles. When these three herbs were eliminated from the recipe separately, the inhibitory effects were prominently decreased. If only one of these five medicinal herbs was added into the medium of lambda-lysogen, the inhibitory rates ranged from 27.0% approximately 45.0%. By electron spin resonance (ESR) detection, we found that the prescription I, Herba Patriniae and other main herbs in that recipe, could quench effectively the free radicals generated in the process of lambda-lysogenic cells by UV. These results provide a novel idea for further studying the pharmacology of TCM and exploring the mechanism of SARS virus infection.