An Ethnopharmacognostic Approach to the Search for Immunomodulators of Plant Origin

Abstract

The search for immunomodulating plant constituents through basic and field inquiries into the literature and practices of traditional Indian medicine is treated. The strategy of data collecting proceeds through aspects of an ethnobotanical, an ethnopharmaceutical, an ethnopharmacological, and an ethnomedical nature. In the experimental immunopharmacognostic phase, immunomodulatory compounds are isolated and purified through action-guided fractionation procedures. The results described here refer to activities found on human complement activation and on PMN leucocytes activation. The immunomodulating plant compounds included in this report were isolated from Azadirachta indica bark, Woodfordia fructicosa flowers, Picrorhiza kurroa roots, and Jatropha multifida latex.

3 Plenary Lecture at the 36^th Annual Congress of the Society for Medicinal Plant Research, Freiburg, 12. to 16.9.1988