Investigation of antiviral properties in medicinal aromatic plants using chemical and data analysis means

Abstract

In many cases only trivial methodology is used for defining the rules, or the factors that are responsible for antiviral activity. Typically, top-down, or bottom-up research strategies are used making the research work complex and expensive. In this work hybrid research strategy investigation of medicinal plants with respect to antiviral properties is presented. The investigation covers chemical analysis methods such as: (i) spectrophotometric analysis non-volatile compounds, (ii) capillary zone electrophoresis analysis of anions and cations, (iii) gas chromatography-mass spectrometric analysis of volatiles (iv) antiviral tests and (v) machine learning techniques. Proposed methodology was capable of identifying 8 antivirally active medicinal plants out of 16 plants. Using machine learning methods several rules were generated suggesting that phenolic compounds having a pKa value higher than 4.7 are directly and positively related to antiviral activity. [...]