| Summary: | Plant viruses are responsible for causing significant losses to the agricultural industry. Recent investigations of antiviral compounds have suggested that biflavonoids may be a group of compounds which cause powerful inhibition to a broad spectrum of viral pathogens. Due to the high content of biflavonoids reported in bryophytes, this project has screened 50 bryophyte samples which represent 41 species for Potato Virus X (PVX) inhibition using a local lesion assay in Chenopodium quinoa. As a result of this screening, bryophytes have been identified as a prominent antiviral group; 29 of the 41 species were shown to cause greater than 75% inhibition when tested at 9.1 mg/mL. In addition to screening bryophyte extracts, several biflavonoid compounds were tested directly. When tested at 1.38 mg/mL robustaflavone and hinokiflavone where shown to be highly antiviral and exhibited PVX inhibitions of 85% and 78% respectively. Amentoflavone-7,4',4'trimethyl ether showed a marginal PVX inhibition of 29% and amentoflavone did not inhibit PVX at this concentration. Several compounds from the Columbian medicinal plant Iryanthera megistophylla have also been screened for inhibition of PVX. Of these compounds, iryanterin K, cinchonain Ib, cinchonain Ia, procyanidin B-2 and cinchonain IIa have been shown to be highly active against PVX when tested at 9.1 mg/mL. === Science, Faculty of === Botany, Department of === Graduate
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