Suppressive effects of Stephania tetrandra on the neutrophil function in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Abstract

Crude preparations of Stephania tetrandra (ST), a traditional herbal medicine, have been used safely for arthritis and silicosis in China. The concentration of granulocyte elastase - alpha 1 protease inhibitor complex in plasma is enhanced in inflammatory processes, e.g. in septicaemia and rheumatoid arthritis (RA), being an expression of granulocyte activation during inflammatory response. It has previously been reported that ST showed beneficial and immunomodulatory effects in the treatment of relatively mild RA. After the administration of ST for 12 weeks, the proportion of granulocytes and the granulocyte count in peripheral blood decreased significantly. The lipid peroxide and human granulocyte elastase levels of stored plasma declined significantly. Furthermore, both the leukocyte/elastase ratio and granulocyte/elastase ratio increased significantly. The findings of this study suggest that the suppressive effect of ST administration on excessive granulocyte activation resulted in the improvement of inflammation with rheumatoid arthritis.

A critical review: traditional uses, phytochemistry, pharmacology and toxicology of Stephania tetrandra S. Moore (Fen Fang Ji)

“…Rheumatoid arthritis patients were administered 10 g extract of S. tetrandra orally for 12 weeks in a clinical trial. The clinical trial results showed that extract of S. tetrandra could significantly reduce the lipid peroxide level, the plasma human granulocyte elastase level, granulocyte count and proportion of granulocytes in peripheral blood of rheumatoid arthritis patients, and increase leukocyte/elastase ratio and granulocyte/elastase ratio (Sekiya et al 2004). The limitations of this study were the lack of description of doses and a positive control.…”

“…Meanwhlie, crude preparations or extracts of S. tetrandra exhibit numerous therapeutic effects. Such crude preparations have been in recent use to safely treat arthritis (Tankeu et al 2016;Jiangsu New Medical College 2006;Sekiya et al 2004), hypertension (Jiangsu New Medical College 2006), apoplexy (Jiangsu New Medical College 2006), edema (Jiangsu New Medical College 2006), neuralgia (Kang et al 1996) and hepatic fibrosis (Sun et al 1999).…”

“…Only two compounds, 9 and 52, have been evaluated for their antibacterial effects. Tetrandrine (9) (200.9, 401.9 or 803.8 lM) exhibited a synergistic effect against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) when combined with the multi-drug resistant (MDR)-efflux pump substrate ethidium bromide, causing a two to fourfold reduction in the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of ethidium bromide against MRSA using a combined test (Lee et al 2011 Lai (2002), Sekiya et al (2004), Seow et al (1988), Lai et al (1999), Yun et al (2018), Yuan et al (2016), Lv et al (2015), Shan et al (2018), Hu et al (2012), Zhang et al (2018a, b, c, d), Zhang (2014), Sun et al (2016) Antifibrotic effects Antifibrotic effects in pulmonary disease . Though the compound exhibited potent inhibitory activity against S. aureus, the required dose of the two compounds was excessive in these studies, the experimental data not being relevant to clinical applications.…”

“…Extracts of S. tetrandra and its principal active components, tetrandrine (9) and fangchinoline (10), have been used to treat autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, transplant rejection and systemic lupus erythematosus (Semwal et al 2010;Lai 2002;Sekiya et al 2004;Seow et al 1988). Rheumatoid arthritis patients were administered 10 g extract of S. tetrandra orally for 12 weeks in a clinical trial.…”

Early-Life Immune Insult and Developmental Immunotoxicity (DIT)-Associated Diseases: Potential of Herbal- and Fungal-Derived Medicinals

“…They have both been found to suppress inflammatory cytokines and NF-kappaB in T cells [164]. Crude preparations from the herb were found to suppress neutrophil function in rheumatoid arthritis patients [165]. It is not clear that this herb by itself would be helpful in reversing DIT-induced Th1suppression.…”