{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,30]],"date-time":"2026-09-30T00:43:49Z","timestamp":1790729029962,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":26,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"22","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,18]],"date-time":"2022-11-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1668729600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"M.S.M. Innovation Fund","award":["1040-0645"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["1040-0645"]}]},{"name":"M.S.M. Innovation Fund","award":["U54MD007602"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["U54MD007602"]}]},{"name":"M.S.M. 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Traditional Senegalese healers have used M. balsamina leaf extract as a part of a plant-based treatment for HIV\/AIDS infections. Our overall goal is to define and validate the scientific basis for using M. balsamina leaf extract as a part of the traditional Senegalese treatment. As an initial characterization of this extract, we used activity-guided fractionation to determine the active ingredient\u2019s solubility and relative size. We found that M. balsamina leaf extract inhibits HIV-1 infection by &gt;50% at concentrations of 0.02 mg\/mL and above and is not toxic over its inhibitory range (0\u20130.5 mg\/mL). We observed significantly more antiviral activity in direct water and acetonitrile extractions (p \u2264 0.05). We also observed significantly more antiviral activity in the aqueous phases of ethyl acetate, chloroform, and diethyl ether extractions (p \u2264 0.05). Though most of the antiviral activity partitioned into the aqueous layers, some antiviral activity was present in the organic layers. We show that the active agent in the plant extracts is at least 30 kD in size. Significantly more antiviral activity was retained in 3, 10, and 30 kD molecular weight cutoff filters (p \u2264 0.05). In contrast, most of the antiviral activity passed through the 100 kD filter (p \u2264 0.05). Because the active anti-HIV-1 agent presented as a large, amphiphilic molecule we ran the purified extract on an SDS-page gel. We show that the anti-HIV-1 activity in the leaf extracts is attributed to a 30 kDa protein we call MoMo30. This article describes how MoMo30 was determined to be responsible for its anti-HIV-1 activity.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ijerph192215227","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,18]],"date-time":"2022-11-18T03:31:10Z","timestamp":1668742270000},"page":"15227","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":10,"title":["Identification of a Novel Anti-HIV-1 Protein from Momordica balsamina Leaf Extract"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"19","author":[{"given":"Morgan I.","family":"Coleman","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Microbiology, Biochemistry and Immunology, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Dr. SW, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Mahfuz","family":"Khan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Microbiology, Biochemistry and Immunology, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Dr. SW, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Erick","family":"Gbodossou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"PROMETRA International, Dakar-Etoile BP 6134, Senegal"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Amad","family":"Diop","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Malango Traditional Healers Association, Fatick BP 1763, Senegal"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Kenya","family":"DeBarros","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Microbiology, Biochemistry and Immunology, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Dr. SW, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Hao","family":"Duong","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Dr. SW, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3999-3076","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Vincent C.","family":"Bond","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Microbiology, Biochemistry and Immunology, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Dr. SW, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9275-2186","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Virginia","family":"Floyd","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Community Health and Prevention, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Dr. SW, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Kofi","family":"Kondwani","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Community Health and Prevention, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Dr. SW, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Valerie","family":"Montgomery Rice","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Office of the President, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Dr. SW, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Francois","family":"Villinger","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Biology Director, New Iberia Research Center, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 4401 W Admiral Doyle Drive, New Iberia, LA 70560, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7698-4841","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Michael D.","family":"Powell","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Microbiology, Biochemistry and Immunology, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Dr. SW, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,18]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"204","DOI":"10.1016\/j.drudis.2015.01.009","article-title":"An analysis of FDA-approved drugs: Natural products and their derivatives","volume":"21","author":"Patridge","year":"2016","journal-title":"Drug Discov. 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