Immunomodulatory effects of a new whole ingredients extract from Astragalus: a combined evaluation on chemistry and pharmacology

Abstract

Background Water extract (WAE) and ultrafine powder (UFP) are two types of commonly used supplements in preparing various pharmaceutical products and functional foods. However, the correlations of the chemical compositions with the traditional functions between WAE and the herb itself, as well as the potential problems of safety for UFP have been more and more concerned by many doctors and customers. Methods In this study, a new whole ingredients extract of Astragalus (WIE) was prepared using the gradient solvent extraction method. The chemical compositions of WIE and WAE were comparatively analysed using spectrophotometric and chromatographic approaches. In addition, the in vivo immunomodulatory effect of WIE, WAE and UFP of Astragalus were comprehensively compared in cyclophosphamide (Cy)-induced immunosuppressive mice. Results The compositions and contents of main active ingredients (polysaccharides, saponins and flavonoids) in WIE were determined to be more abundant than those in WAE. In Cy-induced immunosuppressive mice, oral administered with low dosage of WIE (equalled to 1.0 g herb/kg/day) for 18 consecutive days significantly improved the immune-related responses (body weight, number of peripheral white blood cells, thymus and spleen indexes, splenocyte proliferations, natural killer cell activity, splenic lymphocyte subset, and serum levels of immunoglobulins G and M). The potency of three Astragalus preparations on immunomodulation was observed to be WIE ≥ UFP > WAE. Conclusions WIE maximally retained the chemical integrity of astragalus, and presented better therapeutic effectiveness than UFP and WAE. It can be further developed as new strategy for reasonable use of medicinal/edible herb-derived supplement (extract) for pharmaceutical and healthcare applications. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s13020-019-0234-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Rhubarb and Astragalus Capsule Attenuates Renal Interstitial Fibrosis in Rats with Unilateral Ureteral Obstruction by Alleviating Apoptosis through Regulating Transforming Growth Factor beta1 (TGF-β1)/p38 Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases (p38 MAPK) Pathway

“…RAC contains rhubarb and astragalus, which are commonly used Chinese herbs in Chinese clinical practice. According to reports, the main pharmacologically active ingredients of rhubarb are aloe-emodin, rhein, emodin, and chrysophanol [27], whereas in astragalus the astragalus polysaccharides, astragalus saponins, astragalus flavonoid play therapeutic roles [28]. However, whether the chemical composition of RAC capsules is simply the mixture of the active ingredients of rhubarb and astragalus has not been tested in any publication.…”

The “whole ingredients extract” of Astragali Radix improves the symptoms of dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced ulcerative colitis in mice through systemic immunomodulation

“…The contents of total polysaccharides in WIE and WAE were determined using phenol-sulfuric acid method [12].…”

“…In our previous study, a "whole ingredients extract" (WIE) containing both polar and non-polar molecules of AR has been developed, and demonstrated to present better immunomodulatory effects than the WAE on cyclophosphamide (Cy)-induced immunosuppressive mice [12]. In this study, the therapeutic effects of WIE and WAE against UC through immunomodulation were further investigated and compared on DSSinduced mice model.…”

Integrated network pharmacology and molecular docking strategy to explore the mechanism of medicinal and edible Astragali Radix‐Atractylodis Macrocephalae Rhizoma acting on pneumonia via immunomodulation

“…Bge (The State Pharmacopoeia Commission of PR China, 2015). AR is widely used as a traditional tonic and promising edible immunomodulatory herbal medicine (Chen et al., 2020; Fu et al., 2014; Li, Zhao, et al., 2019). Atractylodis macrocephalae rhizoma (AMR) is called baizhu in Chinese.…”