Virginia Research Day 2025

Medical Student Research Biomedical

25 Dragon’s Blood: Investigating the Immunological Changes Occurring Within Non-Respiratory Cells in the Presence of Dragon’s Blood Sap

Antonio Balducci*; James Lee*; Romina Boortalary; Sohum Patel; Shantanu Rastogi; S. Grant Carter; James Mahaney, PhD; Teresa Johnson, PhD Corresponding author: abalducci@vt.vcom.edu

Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine - Virginia Campus

Dragon’s Blood is a bright ruby red resin obtained from at least three different genera of trees found predominantly in the tropics of South America, Southeastern Asia, and East Africa. This resin’s use dates to ancient times when it had tremendous utility as a medicinal product. Several articles have documented many of the sap’s versatile clinical applications, including its antibacterial, antiviral, pro-coagulative, and antitumorigenic effects. While some of Dragon’s Blood potential has been elucidated for sap obtained from some genera of the trees, the spectrum of its clinical effects is incompletely understood, and activities have not been investigated in all Dragon’s Blood from all sources, including Croton lechleri . In particular, knowledge of the molecular and cellular changes that occur in response to introducing the sap to non-respiratory cells remains to be discovered. The Johnson lab has previously demonstrated the ability of Dragon’s Blood derived from C. lechleri to inhibit the growth of

mediators produced by the cells. Specifically, IL-8, IL-6, interferon-α (IFN-α), tumor necrosis factor, and other cytokines involved in the acute inflammatory process will be quantified. These values will be compared to a control group of cells cultured in parallel without exposure to Dragon’s blood to establish the specific immunologic changes the sap induces on non-respiratory epithelia. Understanding the mechanism by which the sap can produce its antimicrobial effects is paramount to its future use in a clinical setting. Future research on the sap could be targeted to determining the bactericidal potential of the sap itself, which could prove the sap possesses both immune-stimulatory and direct antimicrobial capabilities. Additionally, active components in fractionated sap will be identified for further development of a licensed drug therapy.

Staphylococcus aureus and multiple viruses including vaccinia virus, respiratory syncytial virus, and herpes simplex virus 1. We hypothesize that given the antimicrobial activity seen with this sap there will be a direct increase in interleukin-8 (IL-8) production by the cell lines, suggesting the sap plays an important role in immune stimulation. Understanding the immune mechanism(s) by which the sap can influence cells will allow us to further understand its clinical application. A collection of non-respiratory epithelial cell lines will be grown. The Dragon’s Blood sap will be introduced to each of the cell lines at varying concentrations, and stimulation of cellular and molecular changes will be evaluated. Following a period of incubation with the sap, the culture supernatants will be removed and analyzed to determine the concentrations of specific immune

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