Pharmacological potential of <i>Withania somnifera</i> (L.) Dunal and <i>Tinospora cordifolia</i> (Willd.) Miers on the experimental models of COVID-19, T cell differentiation, and neutrophil functions
Rizvi ZA, Babele P, Madan U, Sadhu S, Tripathy MR, Goswami S, Mani S, Dikshit M, Awasthi A
Frontiers in immunology · 16 citations
How it was studied
- Design
- Animal study (classified by our AI screen)
- Studied in
- People, plus animal or lab work
- Main outcome
- Health markers and function
Who paid for it
- Funding
- Independent funding
- Government
- Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, India
- Nonprofit
- India Diabetes Research Foundation
- University or hospital
- Translational Health Science and Technology Institute
- Government
- National Institutes of Health
- Government
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Government
- Science and Engineering Research Board
- Government
- Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council
- Government
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
- Grants
- National Institutes of Health (USA-WA1/2020)
Based on 8 listed funder(s) and full-text disclosure statement.
Publication
- Published
- 2023-03-07 · Front Immunol · vol. 14 · p. 1138215
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media
- Cited
- 24 citations · more than 95% of similar papers · 4.0× the field average
- Impact
- Top 10% most cited in its field
- References
- 73 works
- Access
- Open access (journal) · CC-BY
- Research areas
- SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Research · Phytochemicals and Medicinal Plants · COVID-19 Clinical Research Studies
- Keywords
- Withania somnifera, Immunology, Inflammation, Medicine, Tinospora cordifolia, In vivo, Coronavirus, Biology, Pharmacology, Traditional medicine, Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), Disease, Internal medicine, Pathology
- MeSH
- neutrophils, animals, mice, transgenic, humans, mice, tinospora, withania, inflammation, rna, viral, plant extracts, cell differentiation, models, theoretical, pandemics, covid-19, sars-cov-2
9 authors
From IN
- Zaigham Abbas Rizvi · correspondingTranslational Health Science and Technology Institute
- Prabhakar BabeleTranslational Health Science and Technology Institute
- Upasna MadanTranslational Health Science and Technology Institute
- Srikanth SadhuTranslational Health Science and Technology Institute
- Manas Ranjan TripathyTranslational Health Science and Technology Institute
- Sandeep GoswamiTranslational Health Science and Technology Institute
Abstract
Cytokine release syndrome (CRS) due to severe acute respiratory coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection leads to life-threatening pneumonia which has been associated with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pathologies. Centuries-old Asian traditional medicines such as Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal (WS) and Tinospora cordifolia (Willd.) Miers (TC) possess potent immunomodulatory effects and were used by the AYUSH ministry, in India during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the present study, we investigated WS and TC's anti-viral and immunomodulatory efficacy at the human equivalent doses using suitable in vitro and in vivo models. While both WS and TC showed immuno-modulatory potential, WS showed robust protection against loss in body weight, viral load, and pulmonary pathology in the hamster model of SARS-CoV2. In vitro pretreatment of mice and human neutrophils with WS and TC had no adverse effect on PMA, calcium ionophore, and TRLM-induced ROS generation, phagocytosis, bactericidal activity, and NETs formation. Interestingly, WS significantly suppressed the pro-inflammatory cytokines-induced Th1, Th2, and Th17 differentiation. We also used hACE2 transgenic mice to further investigate the efficacy of WS against acute SARS-CoV2 infection. Prophylactic treatment of WS in the hACE2 mice model showed significant protection against body weight loss, inflammation, and the lung viral load. The results obtained indicate that WS promoted the immunosuppressive environment in the hamster and hACE2 transgenic mice models and limited the worsening of the disease by reducing inflammation, suggesting that WS might be useful against other acute viral infections. The present study thus provides pre-clinical efficacy data to demonstrate a robust protective effect of WS against COVID-19 through its broader immunomodulatory activity.
Abstract via Europe PMC. Copyright remains with the authors or publisher (CC BY).
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