Immunomodulation of innate immune cells by Sutherlandia frutescens: A transcriptomic analyses

Sutherlandia frutescens (SF) is a plant found in southern portions of Africa with a rich history of traditional use as a beverage to ameliorate some of the symptoms associated with cancer and HIV-AIDS. To date no research has reported the impact of SF on global gene regulation. Therefore, we designed an experiment to evaluate the effects of SF treatment on gene expression in a murine macrophage cell line (RAW 264.7). Cells were exposed to SF extract or a vehicle control for 1 hr prior to activation with LPS and IFNγ. Gene expression at 8 & 24 hr post-stimulation were analyzed using RNA sequencing. Immune-stimulation caused ~2600 genes to be up-regulated and another 2600 genes to be down-regulated at 8 hr and at 24 hr post-stimulation up- and down-regulated genes expanded to ~4100 and >4500, respectively. SF treatment resulted in 547 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) at 8 hr post-stimulation and for most of these genes (~64%) SF altered the direction of their expression. While the total number of genes...