An essential oil blend significantly modulates immune responses and the cell cycle in human cell cultures

Abstract In the current study, we examined the biological activities of an essential oil blend (EOB) in validated human cell cultures, which model the molecular biology of autoimmune diseases and chronic inflammation. EOB is primarily composed of essential oils from wild orange, clove, cinnamon, eucalyptus, and rosemary. These disease models allow the measurement of changes in protein biomarkers induced by EOB treatment. Four T cell autoimmune disease systems and one skin cell system were used for biomarker analysis. Biomarkers levels were measured both before and after EOB treatment for statistic analysis. EOB exhibited significant effects on the levels of protein biomarkers that are critically involved in inflammation, immune modulation, and tissue remodeling processes. The overall inhibitory effect of EOB on these protein biomarkers suggests that it has anti-inflammatory and immune modulating properties. EOB also showed significant anti-proliferative activity against these cells. We next investigated the effect of EOB on genome-wide gene expression in a skin disease model. EOB significantly modulated global gene expression in the skin disease model. Further analysis showed that EOB robustly affected signaling pathways related to inflammation, immune function, and cell cycle control. This study documents the biological activities of EOB in complex human disease models, and indicates that EOB affects various biological and physiological processes in human cells. This study suggests that EOB possesses significant anti-inflammatory and immune modulating properties.