Immunomodulatory Effect of Petasites japonicas on Murine Splenocytes

Abstract

Recently, people are stepping up their efforts to prevent a disease and keep optimum health. Especially,the modulation of the immune responses to alleviate the diseases has been of interest for many years. Although Petasites japonicas have been used as one of the traditional remedies as well as food sources,few studies on their immunomodulating effects have been reported. The result indicated that the extract was able to increase the proliferation B, T lymphocytes compared to no mitogen group. Additionally,we measured several cytokines such as IL-2, IL-4, IFNγ and TNFα which were related with immunoregulation. The result of this study suggest that Petasites japonicas water extract could regulate the immune function by increasing the splenocyte proliferation. (Cancer Prev Res 16, 311-317, 2011)