TY - JOUR
T1 - Immunomodulatory drug discovery from herbal medicines
T2 - Insights from organ-specific activity and xenobiotic defenses
AU - Shi, Jue
AU - Weng, Jui Hsia
AU - Mitchison, Timothy J.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank members of our research groups, whose work and efforts have helped shed light on our thoughts on immunomodulatory drug action and TCM. TJ Mitchison is supported by NIH-GM131753. The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Publisher Copyright:
© Shi et al.
PY - 2021/11/15
Y1 - 2021/11/15
N2 - Traditional herbal medicines, which emphasize a holistic, patient-centric view of disease treatment, provide an exciting starting point for discovery of new immunomodulatory drugs. Progress on identification of herbal molecules with proven single agent activity has been slow, in part because of insufficient consideration of pharmacology fundamentals. Many molecules derived from medicinal plants exhibit low oral bioavailability and rapid clearance, leading to low systemic exposure. Recent research suggests that such molecules can act locally in the gut or liver to activate xenobiotic defense pathways that trigger beneficial systemic effects on the immune system. We discuss this hypothesis in the context of four plant-derived molecules with immunomodulatory activity: Indigo, polysaccharides, colchicine, and ginsenosides. We end by proposing research strategies for identification of novel immunomodulatory drugs from herbal medicine sources that are informed by the possibility of local action in the gut or liver, leading to generation of systemic immune mediators.
AB - Traditional herbal medicines, which emphasize a holistic, patient-centric view of disease treatment, provide an exciting starting point for discovery of new immunomodulatory drugs. Progress on identification of herbal molecules with proven single agent activity has been slow, in part because of insufficient consideration of pharmacology fundamentals. Many molecules derived from medicinal plants exhibit low oral bioavailability and rapid clearance, leading to low systemic exposure. Recent research suggests that such molecules can act locally in the gut or liver to activate xenobiotic defense pathways that trigger beneficial systemic effects on the immune system. We discuss this hypothesis in the context of four plant-derived molecules with immunomodulatory activity: Indigo, polysaccharides, colchicine, and ginsenosides. We end by proposing research strategies for identification of novel immunomodulatory drugs from herbal medicine sources that are informed by the possibility of local action in the gut or liver, leading to generation of systemic immune mediators.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85120906601&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.7554/eLife.73673
DO - 10.7554/eLife.73673
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 34779403
AN - SCOPUS:85120906601
SN - 2050-084X
VL - 10
JO - eLife
JF - eLife
M1 - e73673
ER -