Journal of Clinical & Experimental Dermatology Research
Open Access

Multi-facet immune-modifying activities of specific phytochemicals from medicinal herbs

5^th International Conference on Clinical & Experimental Dermatology

July 13-15, 2015 New Orleans, USA

Ning-Sun Yang

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Clin Exp Dermatol Res

Abstract :

Recent studies showed that a spectrum of innate immune responses, various immune cell types and their cross-talks, and the associated inflammatory activities are involved with many different types of diseases. These findings strongly suggest that, by modulating specific immune cell responses or appropriately suppressing defined inflammatory activities of targeted diseases, we may design new approaches for therapy or treatment of certain inflammatory and chronic diseases, e.g., colitis, dermatitis, IBD and some cancers. Interesting, it�??s well known and appreciated that traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), especially some commonly used medicinal herbs, claimed with functional specificity (e, g., anti-dermatitis promote tissuewound healing), and routinely used historically for hundreds to thousands of years, have been established for their �??strong anti-inflammatory�?� activities toward specific organ targets. With the observations and understandings, my laboratory has investigated a group of phytoextracts or the derived pure phytochemicals from specific TCM plants, and evaluated their bioactivities/effects, in vitro and in vivo, on dendritic cells, MDSCs, Tregs and other immune cell types in mouse models of skin inflammation, colitis and tumor metastasis systems. Experimentally, we employed functional genomics, proteomics, transgenic promoter analysis, cytokine/chemokine profiling, micro RNA array and signaling pathway analysis systems in cross-examination studies. Results and findings, published in eight key papers during the past five years will be discussed and projected for future research directions. The key lesson we learned from these studies and studies: Highly specific cellular, molecular and signaling pathway effect on mouse and human dendritic cells, tumor stromal cells, skin tissue cells can be obtained by specific phytochemicals from TCM, contributing to potent inflammatory-modulatory activities in test animals of disease models.