Immunomodulatory Activity Investigation of Indonesian Plant Extract Through Cytokine Gene Expression Using qRT-PCR Method

Abstract

Pneumonia is an infectious lung disease that is commonly found in secondary bacterial co-infection in severe COVID-19 infection, namely COVID Pneumonia, and it is accounted for higher morbidity and mortality rate than COVID-19 infection alone. To find immunomodulators that able to act as gene expression regulators is important to minimise the occurrence of cytokine storms. Three kinds of Indonesian plant extract namely sappan wood, clove, and neem were used in this experiment to investigate its immunomodulatory activity through the observation of relative gene expression from IFNG and IL1B using qRT-PCR method. The plant extract was administered orally, and the mice is induced by LPS via intranasal, 7 hour prior sacrifice. The result showed clove high dose exert the best effect towards lowering the IL1B in the LPS-induced mice (P<0.01). This might be attributed to its anti-inflammatory properties of eugenol and dehydrodieugenol B. In addition, a significant lower IL1B expression was observed in the LPS-induced mice compared to the clove with high dose treatment, but no statistically significant result showed in IFNG gene expression. This result indicates that the clove extract is still the most promising immunomodulating agent to be further evaluated.