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A collaboration between The Wistar Institute and the University of Buea in Cameroon has uncovered the mechanisms for a medicinal plant with anti-HIV potential in Croton oligandrus Pierre & Hutch, a species of African tree that has been used in traditional healing in Cameroon to treat a variety of diseases and conditions including cancers and diabetes.

This research is one of several discoveries on African chemical compounds that came from the collaboration between Wistar and the University of Buea Centre for Drug Discovery, which began in 2021.

Even with lifelong ART treatment, the virus remains latent in reservoirs throughout the body that can reactivate at any time, and over the long-term, these reservoirs can contribute to chronic inflammation and comorbidities.

Building on work from similar species of plants used in African ethnomedicine, the research team investigated whether the medicinally active compounds in C. oligandrus could be latency-reversing agents, or LRAs, substances that reactivate latent HIV.

LRAs are a critical component of HIV cure research due to their role in what is called "kick and kill," the idea that HIV can be reawakened and actively targeted to eliminate the viral reservoir.