Immunomodulatory Effect of Phytoactive Compounds on Human Health: A Narrative Review Integrated with Bioinformatics Approach

Overview

Journal Curr Top Med Chem

Publisher Bentham Science Publishers

Specialty Chemistry

Date 2024 Mar 29

PMID 38551050

Authors

Saumya Choudhary

Sheeba Khan

Shivani Rustagi

Vijay Rani Rajpal

Noor Saba Khan

Neeraj Kumar

George Thomas

Anamika Pandey

Mehmet Hamurcu

Sait Gezgin

Sajad Majeed Zargar

Mohd Kamran Khan

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Immunomodulation is the modification of immune responses to control disease progression. While the synthetic immunomodulators have proven efficacy, they are coupled with toxicity and other adverse effects, and hence, the efforts were to identify natural phytochemicals with immunomodulatory potential.

Objective: To understand the immunomodulatory properties of various phytochemicals and investigate them in species extracts using an approach.

Methodology: Several scientific database repositories were searched using different keywords: "Phytochemicals," "Alkaloids," "Polyphenols," "Flavonoids," "Lectins," "Glycosides," "Tannins," "Terpenoids," "Sterols," "Immunomodulators," and "Human Immune System" without any language restriction. Additionally, the study specifically investigated the immunomodulatory properties of species extracts using gene expression analysis of GSE12259 from NCBI-GEO through the Bioconductor package GEOquery and limma.

Results: A total of 182 studies were comprehensively analyzed to understand immunomodulatory phytochemicals. The analysis highlighted key biological processes (positive regulation of cytokine production, response to tumor necrosis factor) and molecular functions (cytokine receptor binding, receptor-ligand activity, and cytokine activity) among Echinacea species extracts contributing to immune responses. Further, it also indicated the association of various metabolic pathways, , pathways in cancer, cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, NF-kappa B, PI3K-Akt, TNF, MAPK, and NOD-like receptor signaling pathways, with immune responses. The study revealed various hub targets, including , and .

Conclusion: The present study presents a cumulative picture of phytochemicals with therapeutic benefits. Additionally, the study also reported a few novel genes and pathways in Echinacea extracts by re-analyzing GSE 12259 indicating its anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, and immunomodulatory properties.

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