Abstract

Immune cells produce cytokines in response to various stimuli. The initial cytokine milieu at which immune cells interact have a positive impact on the outcome of the immune response generated. Modulations or polarizations of cytokines are known to affect the outcome of the disease. Immunotherapy is a novel approach to combat cytokine mediated diseases and several medicinal plants are shown to possess immune modulatory properties. One of the popular Indian medicinal plants known as Pongamia pinnata has been extensively studied for its bioactive properties.However, its immune modulatory property has not been studied yet. Therefore we broached on this study of the immune stimulation property of P. pinnata on healthy human peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC). P. pinnata extracts were prepared using various solvents and they were used to stimulate human PBMC. We noticed that P. pinnata extracts induced abundant IL-10 production. Our experimental results indicated that P. pinnata may be a strong inducer of Th-2 cytokines and could be used to treat Th-1 cytokine mediated pathology.

Key words: Immunotherapy, cytokines, Th-1, Th-2, Pongamia pinnata, peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC), ELISA.