EFFECT OF CHANDANASAV, AN AYURVEDIC FORMULATION, ON MICE WHOLE SPLENOCYTES FOR THE PRODUCTION OF POLYCLONAL IgM AND PROLIFERATION OF CELLS: A PRELIMINARY STUDY

In recent days, it has been given great emphasis on the scientific evaluation of traditional or complementary and alternative medicines in order to justify the traditional use, safety, efficacy, quality, and to know its therapeutic values that have not yet explored. Chandanasav, an ancient Ayurved formulation, is commonly used for the treatment of malnutrition, presence of semen in the urine, and treatment of heart and autoimmune diseases. Till now, no research information is available on the immuno-stimulatory activities of this preparation. The present study was designed to evaluate the preliminary immunostimulating potential of Chandanasav for polyclonal immunoglobulin M (IgM) production and proliferation of murine spleen cells. BALB/c mice splenocytes were treated with 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1, 1.5, 2, 3 and 4%  (v/v) of Chandanasav and the cells were sub-cultured at 37^oC in a humidified atmosphere containing 5% CO₂ for 120 h. IgM production in cultured supernatant was determined by Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) and splenocytes proliferation was measured by 3-(4, 5-dimethyl thiazol-2-y)-2, 5-diphenylterazolium bromide (MTT) assay. Chandanasav at the doses of 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1, 1.5 and 2% (v/v) remarkably augmented polyclonal IgM production in cultured supernatants, and those doses moderately enhanced the proliferation of splenocytes. The highest increment of IgM production, observed by 1% Chandanasav, was found to be 11.5-fold higher than that of untreated cells. On the other hand, the highest enhancement of splenocytes proliferation was observed to be 2.5 times higher than control. The IgM production capacity and cells proliferation ability of Chandanasav were reduced by 43 and 24% respectively in cells treated with polymixin B. Thus, our results suggest that the observed enhancement of IgM production treated with Chandanasav in this study was due to the contamination of bacterial endotoxin and hence, this preparation does not possess immunostimulating property. However, further research is recommended to ascertain this finding.