Experiment study on Ma-Xing-Shi-Gan-Tang (MXSGT) and its decomposed recipes on anti-influenza virus A

Abstract

Ancient China was an East Asian country with large population. As we review the history of China, large scale epidemic like Black Death in Europe rarely occurs. It can be seen that the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) make great effort to antivirus and anti-infection treatment. When the SARS broke out in China in 2003, all medical drugs cannot to prevent or treat it. Preventive with TCM and strict disinfection help control the extension of SARS in short time.The using of TCM in clinical must abide by a most important principle that called principal, assistant, complement and guide. We investigate a famous complex recipe Ma Xing Shi Gan Tang (MXSGT) which is record by well-known clinical textbook "Treatise on Cold-induced Febride Diseases". In order to exploring prescription principle of MXSGT, We examined its decomposed recipes on anti-influenza virus A in vitro. MXSGT was disassembled into 15 recipes according to the design of composing prescriptions. Cell culture technique and MTT test were used to determine the effects of MXSGT and its decomposed recipes on MDCK cells infected by influenza virus A.