5.5.1. Isatis tinctoria L

I. tinctoria (dyer's woad) is a well known medicinal plant used since ancient times. Polysaccharides from this species are able to enhance the immune response and in general to exert a beneficial immunomodulatory effect (Han et al., 2011). Li and coworkers synthesized a library of 9 Se-Ps samples from polysaccharides extracted from roots of this species with yields ranging from 16.7% to 27.3% and Se content of 2.65 mg /g - 12.87 mg /g (Li et al., 2016). The Se-P with the highest Se content was found to increase lymphocyte proliferation rate by 19.0% and was then selected to accomplish in vivo studies following the same pharmacological model as reported in the previous paragraph. The proliferation rate increased up to 41.7% at day 28.