Open AccessSilymarin suppresses basal and stimulus-induced activation, exhaustion, differentiation, and inflammatory markers in primary human immune cells
Author(s) -
Erica S. Lovelace,
Nicholas J. Maurice,
Hannah W. Miller,
Chloe K. Slichter,
Robert D. Harrington,
Amalia Magaret,
Martin Prlic,
Stephen De Rosa,
Stephen J. Polyak
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0171139
Subject(s) - immune system , inflammation , immunology , cd8 , t cell , biology , cytokine , cytotoxic t cell , immune dysregulation , in vitro , biochemistry
Silymarin (SM), and its flavonolignan components, alter cellular metabolism and inhibit inflammatory status in human liver and T cell lines. In this study, we hypothesized that SM suppresses both acute and chronic immune activation (CIA), including in the context of HIV infection. SM treatment suppressed the expression of T cell activation and exhaustion markers on CD4+ and CD8+ T cells from chronically-infected, HIV-positive subjects. SM also showed a trend towards modifying CD4+ T cell memory subsets from HIV+ subjects. In the HIV-negative setting, SM treatment showed trends towards suppressing pro-inflammatory cytokines from non-activated and pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP)-activated primary human monocytes, and non-activated and cytokine- and T cell receptor (TCR)-activated mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells. The data suggest that SM elicits broad anti-inflammatory and immunoregulatory activity in primary human immune cells. By using novel compounds to alter cellular inflammatory status, it may be possible to regulate inflammation in both non-disease and disease states.