FLOW CYTOMETRIC IMMUNOPHARMACOLOGICAL STUDIES OF AQUEOUS EXTRACT OF Ficus racemosa AS AN IMMUNOMODULATOR
AMIT GUPTA *
Vidya Pratishthan’s School of Biotechnology, Vidyanagari, Baramati, District Pune, Maharashtra, India
SUSHAMA R. CHAPHALKAR
Vidya Pratishthan’s School of Biotechnology, Vidyanagari, Baramati, District Pune, Maharashtra, India
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The objective of our study is to investigate the immunomodulatory activity of leaves aqueous extract (1 – 30 mg/ml) of Ficus racemosa on human lysed whole blood and peripheral blood mononuclear cells using hepatitis B vaccine (HBsAg) as specific antigen is to estimate the nitric oxide production from cell culture supernatant, cytotoxicity and total blood counts including analyze the lymphocytes, monocytes and granulocytes profile which is determined through flow cytometry. The outcome of these studies reveals that the aqueous extract of Ficus racemosa showed enhancement of nitric oxide, total blood counts and increased in monocytes and granulocytes count at lower doses (1 and 10 mg/ml) as compared to control and standard cyclophosphamide. Overall the data reveals that the leaves aqueous extract of Ficus racemosa showed immunomodulatory activity.
Keywords: Ficus racemosa, immunomodulatory, blood counts, nitric oxide, hepatitis B vaccine