Activation of macrophage by an oral intake of a quillaja saponin.

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Quillaja saponin (QS) is triterpenoid saponins extracted from the cortex of the South American tree (Quill Saponaria Molina), a member of the family Rosaceae. QS have amphipathic properties because of the water solubility of the carbohydrate moiety and lipids solubility of the sapogenin. Aqueous extracts from the bark of Quill Saponaria have world widely been used as an emulsifier and a foaming agent, particularly in soft drinks. Many countries have recognized the quillaja extract as a safe food additive, based on the long-term safety evaluation of the extracts given orally.The present study found a new physically functional property of a quill extract as a stimulating agent for macrophage that is a principal phagocyte in natural immunity to prevent host from infectious diseases. After 24 hours of oral administration of the extract to mice (dose : 0.5 mg / Kg), both chemotactic and phagocytic activities of the macrophage prepared from either spleen cells or peritoneal exudate cells of … More mice tested were increased by 2-7 times comparing to that of control mice. In addition to these results, the mice orally administered the quill extract shown much higher survival rate for 5 days (60%) than that of control mice (0%), when these mice were infected with E. coli (C11 strain) by intraperitoneal injection after 24 hours of the oral administration.The present study further conducted a human volunteer test to examine whether or not a quill extract has stimulated macrophage derived from human blood. Every eight male volunteers taking a soft drink that contain the quill extract (dose : 0.5 mg / Kg / day) for 7 days resulted in a significant increase of both chemotactic and phagocytic activities of their macrophage comparing to these of pre-intake the soft drink. Since a quill extract are used safety food additive, these result obtained in the present study might be valuable for developing a new physically functional foods containing a quill extract in order to prevent human, especially elder people, from infectious diseases in future. Less