Immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory effects of Camellia sinensis extract on RAW 264.7 mouse macrophage cell lines

Macrophages are essential components of the innate immune system that assist in treating or preventing immune-related diseases. Recently, synthetic medications are frequently used to address these aberrant disorders but presented several undesirable side effects. Camellia sinensis or also known as tea tree has the potential of becoming an immunomodulatory agent based on the previous researches that had been done. However, there has been no scientific data related to the immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory activities of the plant on the normal model and lipopolysaccharides (LPS) induced model of RAW264.7 mouse macrophage cell lines. Hence, this in vitro study will determine the immunomodulatory effects of the plant on the innate immune responses of macrophages. Briefly, the effects of the plant extract were conducted after 24 hours of treatment on cytotoxicity and migration activities of normal and LPS-stimulated macrophages by using MTT assay and wound closure method, respectively. The results present that there was no significant difference in viability percentage and morphological changes between the treated cells and untreated cells in both models indicated no cytotoxicity effects. In addition, the results show the presence of migration activities in both models after the treatment with the C. sinensis extract. The rate of migration along with the wound closure percentage of normal model of macrophages had increased significantly in the treatment of C. sinensis extract as compared to the untreated macrophages for normal and LPS-induced macrophages. Overall, the current findings of this research suggested that the C. sinensis aqueous extract was able to induce innate immune responses of normal model and LPS-induced model of the macrophages. Therefore, this plant can be potentially developed in future as immunomodulatory agent to treat various immune-related diseases. Though, further studies were needed for the validation of the findings through various experimental studies in the future.