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Immunomodulatory drug discovery from herbal medicines: Insights from organ-specific activity and xenobiotic defenses

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 insu...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Shi, Jue, Weng, Jui-Hsia, Mitchison, Timothy J
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8592567/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34779403
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.73673
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author Shi, Jue
Weng, Jui-Hsia
Mitchison, Timothy J
author_facet Shi, Jue
Weng, Jui-Hsia
Mitchison, Timothy J
author_sort Shi, Jue
collection PubMed
description 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.
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spelling pubmed-85925672021-11-17 Immunomodulatory drug discovery from herbal medicines: Insights from organ-specific activity and xenobiotic defenses Shi, Jue Weng, Jui-Hsia Mitchison, Timothy J eLife Biochemistry and Chemical Biology 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. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2021-11-15 /pmc/articles/PMC8592567/ /pubmed/34779403 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.73673 Text en © 2021, Shi et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Shi, Jue
Weng, Jui-Hsia
Mitchison, Timothy J
Immunomodulatory drug discovery from herbal medicines: Insights from organ-specific activity and xenobiotic defenses
title Immunomodulatory drug discovery from herbal medicines: Insights from organ-specific activity and xenobiotic defenses
title_full Immunomodulatory drug discovery from herbal medicines: Insights from organ-specific activity and xenobiotic defenses
title_fullStr Immunomodulatory drug discovery from herbal medicines: Insights from organ-specific activity and xenobiotic defenses
title_full_unstemmed Immunomodulatory drug discovery from herbal medicines: Insights from organ-specific activity and xenobiotic defenses
title_short Immunomodulatory drug discovery from herbal medicines: Insights from organ-specific activity and xenobiotic defenses
title_sort immunomodulatory drug discovery from herbal medicines: insights from organ-specific activity and xenobiotic defenses
topic Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8592567/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34779403
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.73673
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