Dengue infections are still a worldwide burden, especially in Indonesia. There is no specific\nmedication against the dengue virus. Recently, many types of research have been conducted to\ndiscover a new drug for dengue virus using natural resource extracts. Indonesia, as a tropical country,\nhas a wide biodiversity. There are several medicinal plants in Indonesia that are believed to possess\nanti-dengue activity, such as Myristica fatua, Cymbopogon citratus, and Acorus calamus plants. We\nconducted an in vitro laboratory experiment of several extracts from Indonesian herbs combined\nwith in silico analysis. The extracts were evaluated for safety and antiviral activity in Huh7it-1 cell\nlines, using a single dose of 20 microg/mL and dose-dependent (5, 10, 20, 40, 80 and 160 microg/mL) of plant extracts against dengue virus serotype 2 (DENV-2) NGC strain. The DMSO 0.1% was used as a\nnegative control. The cytotoxic aspect was assessed by counting the cell viability, while the antiviral\nactivity was calculated by counting the average inhibition. The selectivity index (SI) of plant extracts\nwere performed from a ratio of CC50/EC50 value. In silico analysis was conducted to determine\nthe free energy of binding between NS5 of dengue virus with bioactive compounds contained in\nMyristica fatua, Cymbopogon citratus and Acorus calamus extract plants. We determined that all extracts\nwere not toxic against Huh7it-1 cell lines. The methanolic extracts of A. calamus, C. citratus, and M.\nfatua showed inhibition of DENV-2 at a dose of 20 microg/mL to 96.5%, 98.9%, and 122.7%, respectively.\nThe dose-dependent effects showed that M. fatua has the best inhibition activity towards DENV-2.\nMolecular docking result showed that artesunic acid within M. fatua has the best free energy of\nbinding (-7.2 kcal/mol), followed by homoegonol (-7.1 kcal/mol) which was slightly different from\nartesunic acid among others. The methanolic extracts of A. calamus, C. citratus, and M. fatua showed\nprospective anti-dengue activities both in vitro and in silico. Future research should be conducted to\nfind the pure extracts of all useful herbs as a new candidate of antiviral drug.
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