Thursday 25 October 2018

Herbal Chickweed, the Natural and Novel Antimicrobial Remedy

By Kyle J. Norton, Master of Nutrition

Chickweed may have a profound effect in the inhibition of micro-pathogens before they can cause infection and damage to the body, some scientists suggested

Antimicrobial effects are the natural reaction of the immune system in the response to protect our body against damage during the acute phase of infection.

After sensing the danger of micro infection, the immune macrophages activated the proteins which are responsible for the production of proinflammatory cytokines to the location with an aim to kill off the foreign microorganisms.

However, in most cases, overproduction of proinflammatory cytokines can also induce damage and death to the nearby healthy cells, leading to abnormal healing with the formation of irreversible scars.

In facts, out of millions of bacteria that live in our body, most of them help us to digest food, kill or inhibit the overproduction of harmful bacteria, and protect us by creating environments in which harmful organisms cannot survive, only a few hundred which have been known to cause diseases.

Bad micro-pathogens can cause infection in some different ways, including airborne carried in the air,  vector-borne, carried by a live carrier, such as a mosquito, flea, rat, or tick. vehicle-borne transmitted through food, water, and blood.

Chickweed is a cool-season annual plant often eaten by chickens., genus S. media, belonging to the family Caryophyllaceae, native to Europe.

 The herb has been used in herbal medicine to treat skin conditions, indigestion, eczema, cough, rashes, etc. and as astringent, carminative, demulcent, diuretic, expectorant, laxative, refrigerant, vulnerary agent.

In the study to examine the antimicrobial activity of Chickweed researchers at the Institute of Botany, Jiangsu Province and Chinese Academy of Science conducted an experiment to test the efficacy of the Stellarmedin A, purified from the herbal medicine against herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2).

At an IC50 of 13.18 µg/ml, exerted a significant inhibitory activity by preventing the herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) to replicate and affecting the initial stage of HSV-2 in the initiation of infection.

Furthermore, application of the purified compound also inhibits the proliferation of promyelocytic leukemia HL-60 and colon carcinoma LoVo cells with an IC50 of 9.09 and 12.32 µM, respectively.

The findings suggested Chickweed may process an anti-HSV-2 protein which exerts antiproliferative and peroxidase activities against microbial infection.

Moreover, in the comparison of the antimicrobial effect of Sm-AMP-D1 and Sm-AMP-D2, isolated from seeds of common chickweed, researchers found that both novel compounds display an strong inhibitory activity against phytopathogenic fungi and oomycetes in the micromolar range (IC(50)≤1μM).

The efficacy of both compounds in the inhibition of microbial infection was attributed to the genomic DNA in engineering pathogen resistance.

Interestingly, in the study of plant defense peptides, small polypeptide molecules that present antimicrobial properties, scientists at the Vavilov Institute of General Genetics launched an experiment o examine the antibacterial activity using a novel antifungal peptide named Sm-AMP-X (33 residues) from the common chickweed.

Sm-AMP-X exhibits high broad-spectrum activity against fungal phytopathogens and the antifungal activity was associated with the truncated variants Sm-AMP-X1 compared to Sm-AMP-X2.

Taken all together, the results indicated that Chickweed may be considered a functional food and an adjunct therapy due to its novel components and phytochemicals in the protection against microbial infection.

However, due to the limitation of the above studies, additional data collection large example size and multi-centers studies performed with human consumption of the whole food or its bioactive compounds during the course of the disease will be necessary to complete the picture of Chickweed anti-microbial possibilities.


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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)

Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.References
(1) Purification and characterization of a novel anti-HSV-2 protein with antiproliferative and peroxidase activities from Stellaria media by Shan Y1, Zheng Y, Guan F, Zhou J, Zhao H, Xia B, Feng X.(PubMed)
(2) Isolation, molecular cloning and antimicrobial activity of novel defensins from common chickweed (Stellaria media L.) seeds by Slavokhotova AA1, Odintsova TI, Rogozhin EA, Musolyamov AK, Andreev YA, Grishin EV, Egorov TA. (PubMed)
(3) Novel antifungal α-hairpinin peptide from Stellaria media seeds: structure, biosynthesis, gene structure and evolution by Slavokhotova AA1, Rogozhin EA, Musolyamov AK, Andreev YA, Oparin PB, Berkut AA, Vassilevski AA, Egorov TA, Grishin EV, Odintsova TI. (PubMed)
(4) Human genes involved in hepatitis B virus infection by Zheng Zeng. (PMC)
(5) Risk factors for hepatitis A, B and C virus infection among Swedish expatriates by Struve J1, Norrbohm O, Stenbeck J, Giesecke J, Weiland O. (PubMed)

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