Herbal medicine has traditionally played an essential role in the control of infectious diseases (Ahmad et al., 2019). Clinical evidence from a variety of herbal medicine research in the treatment of SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) has demonstrated considerable results, bolstering the hypothesis that herbal medicine might help treat and prevent pandemic diseases (Anget al., 2020). Herbal medication mixed with Western treatment may enhance symptoms and quality of life in SARS-CoV patients, according to a Cochrane systematic review (Liu et al., 2020). Herbal medicine was also found to lessen the rate of H1N1 influenza infection in a recent meta-analysis (Luoet al., 2020). Herbal medication is regarded as one of the alternate ways the treatment of COVID-19, based on prior experience.
In this study, we evaluated the cytotoxic and phagocytic activity of a proprietary, standardized extract of O. sanctum, commercially known as TulsiOdaat™. After screening for cytotoxicity in the mouse macrophage RAW 264.7 cell line, the non-cytotoxic doses/concentration of TulsiOdaat™, (3 µg/mL and 6 µg/mL), were tested for the phagocytic activity. The experiment compared the activity of TulsiOdaat™ with positive control (LPS) and the untreated/control group. TulsiOdaat™, at a dose of 3 µg/mL, demonstrated similar phagocytic activity to a positive control (LPS) and higher activity than the untreated/control group. Increasing the dose to 6 µg/mL did not show any enhanced activity and was found to be similar to the dose of 3 µg/mL.
O. sanctum hydro-alcoholic extract reduced viral intracellular multiplication. In H9N2 viruses, it also prevents non-specific interference with virus-cell interactions (Ghokeet al., 2018). The immunomodulatory ability of alcoholic leaf extracts was demonstrated by a reduction in hepatic parasites and a skewing of the humoral response toward Th1 type at an IC50 value of 73.3 g/ml (Bhallaet al., 2017). In cultivated HL-60 cells, O. sanctum suppresses the activities of leukotriene-C4-synthase, leukotriene-A4-hydrolase, and cyclooxygenase-2, resulting in a considerable reduction in OVA-induced lung inflammation (Soniet al., 2015).
Previous scientific research has revealed that the O. sanctum has anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and anti-fungal activities that include activity against many pathogens responsible for human infections. O. sanctum has also been shown to boost defenses against infective threats by enhancing immune responses in non-stressed and stressed animals and healthy humans. There is experimental evidence that O. sanctum may help in the treatment of various human bacterial infections including urinary tract infections, skin and wound infections, typhoid fever, cholera, tuberculosis, gonorrhea, acne, herpes simplex, leishmaniasis, various pneumonia and fungal infections, as well as mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue, malaria, and filariasis (Hemalatha et al., 2011; Tripathi et al., 2008; Goelet al., 2010; Mondal et al., 2011)
The results of our in-vitro study corroborate the observations of previous studies on O. sanctum and confirm that this proprietary, standardized extract of O. sanctum, commercially known as TulsiOdaat™, activates macrophages and enhances their phagocytic activity, which could help in augmenting the immune response against foreign antigens or disease-causing pathogens.
Molecular docking is a computer-aided model to predict the binding affinity of biomolecules toward a particular receptor. Although docking technology is of great help in pharmacology, these techniques are very helpful to predict the affinity of drugs/bioactive leads within the binding site of the target of interest. Interestingly, thousands of biomolecules can be evaluated for the potential efficacy with the help of docking study at a small cost in a short time span. In the process of searching novel molecules and pharmacological research, discovery of bioactive compounds has always been challenging. With the help of molecular docking studies, number of bioactive compounds will be screened at a faster pace. We hope to accelerate the development cycle of future forecasting applications, to aid an increasing number of researchers to appropriately and reasonably use these technologies.