Background and objective. Bronchial asthma is a heterogeneous disease, usually characterised by chronic airway inflammation, reversible airway narrowing, airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) and airway remodelling. The study was designed to evaluate the anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory potentials of Albizia lebbeck in experimental model of bronchial asthma in rats.Methods. Wistar rats were immunised with ovalbumin (OVA) on day 0 and were challenged with 1% OVA aerosol for 20 minutes daily, from 15th to 22nd day to induce inflammatory model of bronchial asthma. Standardised aqueous extract of Albizia lebbeck (bark) was administered orally for 22 days at doses of 100, 200 and 400 mg/kg, in separate groups. Rats were anesthetised and blood and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid were collected and analysed for markers of inflammation (inflammatory cell counts, tumour necrosis factor-alpha [TNF-α], interleukin-6 [IL-6]) and immunomodulation [Ova sIgE], IL-4 and interferon-gamma [IFN-γ]).Results. Pre-treatment with Albizia lebbeck significantly attenuated the levels of eosinophils, neutrophils, OVA sIgE, TNF-α, IL-6, IL-4 whereas, elevated the levels of IFN-γ in both blood and BAL fluid, thus validating the antiinflammatory and immunomodulatory effect of the extract.
Conclusion.Taken together, the results showed that standardised extract of Albizia lebbeck has anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory activity as evident from the modulation of cellular and molecular markers of inflammation and immunity in the model of airway inflammation.
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