A Comprehensive Detail of Natural Anti-Infective Agents

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The immune response is an essential regulatory system designed to confer protective ability to hosts against various foreign challenges, including bacteria and viruses. However, self-perpetuation and over-aggravation of the immune system are also responsible for a variety of infectious diseases in humans. Phytochemicals are biologically active, non-nutritive, low molecular weight secondary metabolites that occur in different parts of plants and are well known for their various health-beneficial effects. The non-nutritional plant-based bioactive molecules are amongst the major groups responsible for a majority of immunomodulatory health benefits. These phytomolecules have been shown to possess a significant role in the regulation of various vital cell signaling pathways involved in the pathogenesis of various infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, hepatitis, pneumonia and dengue. Bioactive molecules may play an essential protective role in infectious diseases by interfering with innate and adaptive immune cell regulation, especially proinflammatory cytokine synthesis and cell activation. Considering this, nowadays, most of the natural products are processed and developed as immunomodulators and immunosuppressants for different infectious diseases. In this chapter, we will discuss phytomolecules, their biological potential, and how these molecules regulate innate and adaptive immune responses in infectious diseases. We will also discuss and compare the depth of knowledge available from previous works, which emphasize the importance of developing phytomolecules based preventive and therapeutic approaches as alternatives to synthetic counterparts in infectious diseases.