Immunomodulation with Viscum Album and Echinacea Purpurea Extracts

Coeugniet, E; Elek, E

doi:10.1159/000216462

Cited by 27 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 1 publication

(2 reference statements)

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“…This concept is further substantiated by other reports showing immunostimulatory effects of other plant extracts, such as those from Echinacea [27,28] or Thuja [29], in humans.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Non-lectin component in a fermented extract from Viscum album L. grown on pines induces proliferation of lymphocytes from healthy and allergic individuals in vitro

Stein

Berg

1994

Eur J Clin Pharmacol

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Mistletoe preparations have been shown to express immunomodulatory properties. In order to evaluate the stimulatory potency of different mistletoe extracts, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from healthy and allergic/atopic individuals were exposed to aqueous or fermented extracts derived from Viscum album L. grown on apple trees (Mali-extracts) or on pines (Pini-extracts). None of them had received any mistletoe treatment. Iscador Pini was the only extract which strongly induced proliferation of PBMC in contrast to the other five preparations. On testing these extracts by Western blotting with anti-mistletoe lectin-1 (ML-1) antibody positive sera from mistletoe-treated patients, it became evident that Iscador Pini was almost devoid of lectins. The stimulatory potency of Iscador Pini for PBMC from three different groups was examined: PBMC from 35 normal controls (Group I), 23 patients with drug-induced adverse effects (Group II) and 16 individuals with allergic manifestations (Group III). Cells were exposed in 7-day cultures to the extract at concentrations between 1 and 10,000 micrograms/ml. PBMC from 63% of Group III individuals showed strong stimulation (SI varying from 6 to 97) in contrast to only 9% from Group I and 22% from Group II individuals. Anti-ML-1 antibodies were detected in 5% and anti-IP antibodies in 11% of subjects in the three groups. They were either of the IgA or IgM type but not of the IgG type. Our findings strongly imply that a non-lectin associated antigen from Iscador Pini is able to activate PBMC from healthy and allergic/atopic individuals, thereby demonstrating sensitization to probably highly conserved plant antigens.

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“…This concept is further substantiated by other reports showing immunostimulatory effects of other plant extracts, such as those from Echinacea [27,28] or Thuja [29], in humans.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Non-lectin component in a fermented extract from Viscum album L. grown on pines induces proliferation of lymphocytes from healthy and allergic individuals in vitro

Stein

Berg

1994

Eur J Clin Pharmacol

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“…However, despite the immunostimulatory effect that may be seen with short-term use, chronic long-term use (Ͼ 6 to 8 weeks) of echinacea may be immunosuppressive. 31 Leukopenia as a result of echinacea ingestion has been reported. 32 This leukopenia could augment myelosuppressive effects of a wide array of cytotoxic chemotherapeutic agents, leading to severe life-threatening complications.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use by Patients Enrolled Onto Phase I Clinical Trials

Bekele

Hanson

et al. 2004

JCO

120

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“…Plant extracts are potentially curative. Some of these extracts can boost humoral (Kroes et al, 1993;Rehman et al, 1999) and cell-mediated immunity (Upadhyay et al, 1992;Kim et al, 1999;Coeugniet and Elek, 1987) against viruses (Tan et al, 1998;Calixto et al, 1998;Houghton, 1996), bacteria (Boyanova and Neshev, 1999;Caceres et al, 1993), fungi (Ali et al, 1999;Matos et al, 1999), protozoa (Phillipson and Wright, 1991;Sharma and Sharma, 1998) and cancer (Wong et al, 1994;Chung, 1999).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%