ABSTRACT

Traditional medicinal plants have long been used in people’s healthcare regimens to treat a wide range of ailments. The ancient medicinal plant Embelia ribes Burm. (E. ribes) has potential for a wide range of pharmacological activities that are linked to embelin, a natural dihydroxy benzoquinone. E. ribes is reported to have immunomodulatory activity, considering which was the foundation to sketch an immunomodulatory study of the isolated embelin from it. Analytical assessment confirmed the isolated embelin by FTIR, UV-Visible spectrophotometry and DSC when compared with the standard. Embelin showed immunostimulant activity in the concentration range of 160 µg mL-1 to 240 µg mL-1. The in vitro study on human PMN cells, observations of phagocytosis of Candida albicans, and NBT reduction assay explain that embelin has an affinity towards PMN cells.