Li Xuan, Wichai Nuttapong, Wang Jiabao, Liu Xiuping, Yan Huimin, Wang Yu, Luo Mingchi, Zhou Shengyuan, Wang Kai, Li Lin, Miao Lin
State Key Laboratory of Component-based Chinese Medicine, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China.
Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China.
Acupunct Herb Med. 2022 Sep;2(3):196-206. doi: 10.1097/HM9.0000000000000046. Epub 2022 Dec 8.
Vaccination is a major achievement that has become an effective prevention strategy against infectious diseases and active control of emerging pathogens worldwide. In response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, several diverse vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 have been developed and deployed for use in a large number of individuals, and have been reported to protect against symptomatic COVID-19 cases and deaths. However, the application of vaccines has a series of limitations, including protective failure for variants of concern, unavailability of individuals due to immune deficiency, and the disappearance of immune protection for increasing infections in vaccinated individuals. These aspects raise the question of how to modulate the immune system that contributes to the COVID-19 vaccine protective effects. Herbal medicines are widely used for their immune regulatory abilities in clinics. More attractively, herbal medicines have been well accepted for their positive role in the COVID-19 prevention and suppression through regulation of the immune system. This review presents a brief overview of the strategy of COVID-19 vaccination and the response of the immune system to vaccines, the regulatory effects and mechanisms of herbal medicine in immune-related macrophages, natural killer cells, dendritic cells, and lymphocytes T and B cells, and how they help vaccines work. Later in the article, the potential role and application of herbal medicines in the most recent COVID-19 vaccination are discussed. This article provides new insights into herbal medicines as promising alternative supplements that may benefit from COVID-19 vaccination.
疫苗接种是一项重大成就，已成为全球预防传染病和积极控制新出现病原体的有效策略。为应对2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行，已研发出多种针对严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2的疫苗并在大量人群中使用，据报道这些疫苗可预防有症状的COVID-19病例和死亡。然而，疫苗的应用存在一系列局限性，包括对关注变体的保护失败、因免疫缺陷导致个体无法接种，以及接种疫苗个体中因感染增加导致免疫保护消失。这些方面引发了如何调节有助于COVID-19疫苗保护作用的免疫系统的问题。草药因其在临床上的免疫调节能力而被广泛使用。更具吸引力的是，草药通过调节免疫系统在COVID-19预防和抑制方面的积极作用已得到广泛认可。本综述简要概述了COVID-19疫苗接种策略以及免疫系统对疫苗的反应、草药在免疫相关巨噬细胞、自然杀伤细胞、树突状细胞以及T和B淋巴细胞中的调节作用和机制，以及它们如何帮助疫苗发挥作用。在本文后面部分，将讨论草药在最新的COVID-19疫苗接种中的潜在作用和应用。本文为草药作为有望从COVID-19疫苗接种中获益的替代补充剂提供了新的见解。
