Screening of Traditional wild Edible Fruits for Presence of Lectins with Immunomodulatory Efficacy

Author: B.M. Siddesh, B.K. Kiran, Ankith Sherapura, Banumathi, Riaz Mahmood and B.T. Prabhakar

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Abstract

Wild edible fruits (WEF’s) are recognized for their nutritional and medicinal properties, particularly due to their content of lectins, which are carbohydrate binding proteins that exhibit various biological activities. Many fruits contain lectins and exhibit various biological properties including immunomodulation, cytotoxicity and mitogenic activity and being used as therapeutic agents against cancer. In present investigation, eight Wild Edible Fruits (WEFs) which are uncultivated, but widely consumed on different season, viz Cordia myxa (CM), Cucumis melo var. Cantalupensis (CMC), Cucumis melo var momordica (CMM), Malpighia emarginata (MAE), Mimusops elengi (ME), Ziziphus mauritiana (ZM), Mintingia calabura (MC) and Limonia acidissima (LA) were screen for presence of immunostimulant lectin. Among them, partially purified fruit extracts of CM, CMC, CMM, MAE, ME and ZM exhibited Hemagglutination activity confirming the presence of lectin. The selected plants further screened for presence of immunomodulatory cytokines by ELISA, Results inferred that, elevated levels of IL-2, IL-10, IL-12 were noticed. Immunomodulation studies by treating conditioned media obtained from selected fruit CM against multiple cancer cell lines inferred that, it induces significant expression of immune stimulant cytokines and its antiproliferative response against human lung adenocarcinoma (A549) and murine ascites cell line (EAC). Overall, the study postulates the importance of the six WEFs for the first time with immunomodulatory potentiality and highlights the importance of WEF’s with therapeutic potentiality.

Keywords

Wild edible fruits, Cordia myxa, Lectins, Immunomodulation and Antiproliferation.

Conclusion

The investigation is a novel and first time we are reporting the presence of lectin in six WEF’s which were unnoticed and with high medicinal value. Among six fruits extract, lectin from CM has strong immunomodulation activity by proliferating immune cells and secreting immune cytokines. The CML induced immunocytokines were able to induce antiproliferative activity. Such diet-based lectin with immunomodulatory capacity is indeed necessary to establish therapeutic strategy against cancer. Future studies are focused to investigate the potential role of these CM with systemic investigations.

References

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How to cite this article

B.M. Siddesh, B.K. Kiran, Ankith Sherapura, Banumathi, Riaz Mahmood and B.T. Prabhakar (2024). Screening of Traditional wild Edible Fruits for Presence of Lectins with Immunomodulatory Efficacy. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 16(12): 32-38.