Evaluation of Immunomodulatory activity of phytochemicals from Alpinia galanga and Alpinia nigra for potent immunostimulatory agent in chemotherapy

Abstract

Essential oils are capable of retaining vital medicinal benefits, however, there is a void in the research of biological activities of these oils in complex human disease models which is yet to be validated. For more explorations, we evaluated the medicinal activities of essential oil of A.galanga and A.nigra in order to find potent source of bioactive molecules, cytotoxicity and immuno stimulating activities of the essential oils from the rhizomes. We report immuno stimulating potential of these essential oils. Cytotoxicity of essential oil was evaluated using 3-(4,5-dimethythiazol-2-yl)-2,5- diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay to evaluate the toxicity against normal human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). The immunostimulatory activity on human lymphocytes was evaluated by using Th1 and Th2 cytokine estimations. Analysis of these essential oils through GC-MS revealed high content of 1, 8-cineole in both the oils (28.12% in A.galanga and 24% in A.nigra ). Both the rhizome oils showed significant increase in the number of lymphocytes than that of the control. The oils of A.galanga and A.nigra showed proliferative action on human PBMCs and an increase in both IL-5 and IFN-γ cytokine. As a result, no toxicity was recorded on human PBMCs. Major concentrations of 1,8-cineole and collaborative effects of the total composition of the rhizome oils were possibly accountable for the efficacy of these oils against human PBMCs. These essential oils can be considered as potential source of natural immunostimulatory agent in chemotherapy and also play important role in other immune suppressed diseases.