New Insights into Artesunate as a Pleiotropic Regulator of Innate and Adaptive Immune Cells

Table 1

Effects of artesunate on some innate immune cells and potential application.

Cell type	Observed effects	Signal pathways	Potential application
Neutrophils	Reduction of counts [3–7]; Inhibition of oxidative response [8, 9]; Reduction of proinflammatory cytokines [9]; Inhibition of chemotaxis [10]; Promotion of oxidative response with infection [11]; Promotion of counts with low dose for long time [12]	Nrf2 signaling pathway [8]	Monoarthritis [7]; Allergic asthma [8]; Septic lung injury [9]
Monocytes/macrophages	Reduction of proinflammatory cytokines [13–16]; Reduction of MMP-9 [17]; Reduction of NO [18]; Inhibition of autophagic activation [19]; Promotion of LPS internalization [16]; Restoration of autophagy and reversing LPS tolerance in sepsis [20, 21]; Activation of vitamin D receptor [21]	NF-B pathway [13–15, 17]; cAMP-mediated pathway [18]; Wnt/-catenin pathway [18]; TRAF6-Beclinl-PI3KC3 pathway [19]; CaMKII-IP3R-CaMKK pathway [20]	Sepsis [13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21]; Colitis [15]
NK cells	Promotion of cytotoxic activity against tumor cells [22–26]; Reduction of TGF-β1 and IL-10 [22]		Tumor [22–26]
Mast cells	Inhibition of IgE-mediated degranulation [27]	IP3/Ca^2+ signaling pathway [27]	Allergic asthma [27]
T cells	Reduction of population in draining lymph nodes [28]; Promotion of cytotoxic activity on tumor cells [29]; Reduction of TGF-1 [29]		Psoriasis [28]; Tumor [29]
Eosinophils	Reduction of counts [30]; Reduction of IL-4, IL-5, IL-13, and eotaxin [30, 31]; Promotion of apoptosis [32]	PI3K/Akt pathway [31]; NF-B signaling pathway [31]	Allergic asthma [30–32]