Quillaia
Encyclopedia
Quillaia is the milled inner bark
Bark
Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...

 or small stems and branches of the soapbark (Quillaja saponaria, Molina). Other names include China bark extract, Murillo bark extract, Panama bark extract, Quillai extract, Quillaia extract, Quillay bark extract, and Soapbark extract. It contains a high concentration of saponin
Saponin
Saponins are a class of chemical compounds, one of many secondary metabolites found in natural sources, with saponins found in particular abundance in various plant species...

s which is increased by processing; highly purifed quillaia is used to enhance vaccine
Vaccine
A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe or its toxins...

s. Other compounds in the extract include tannin
Tannin
A tannin is an astringent, bitter plant polyphenolic compound that binds to and precipitates proteins and various other organic compounds including amino acids and alkaloids.The term tannin refers to the use of...

s and other polyphenol
Polyphenol
Polyphenols are a structural class of natural, synthetic, and semisynthetic organic chemicals characterized by the presence of large multiples of phenol structural units...

s, and calcium oxalate
Calcium oxalate
Calcium oxalate is a chemical compound that forms needle-shaped crystals, known in plants as raphides. A major constituent of human kidney stones, the chemical is also found in beerstone, a scale that forms on containers used in breweries...

.

The extract of quillaia is used in the manufacture of food additives (E number
E number
E numbers are number codes for food additives that have been assessed for use within the European Union . They are commonly found on food labels throughout the European Union. Safety assessment and approval are the responsibility of the European Food Safety Authority...

 999). It is used as a humectant
Humectant
A humectant is a hygroscopic substance. It is often a molecule with several hydrophilic groups, most often hydroxyl groups, but amines and carboxyl groups, sometimes esterified, can be encountered as well; the affinity to form hydrogen bonds with molecules of water is crucial here.Since...

 in baked goods, frozen dairy products, and puddings and as a foaming agent
Foaming agent
A foaming agent is a surfactant, which when present in small amounts, facilitates the formation of a foam, or enhances its colloidal stability by inhibiting the coalescence of bubbles....

 in soft drink
Soft drink
A soft drink is a non-alcoholic beverage that typically contains water , a sweetener, and a flavoring agent...

s. It also applied in some "natural" spray adjuvant formulations for agriculture.

In particular, the saponins from Quillaja saponaria are used in veterinary vaccines as adjuvant
Adjuvant
An adjuvant is a pharmacological or immunological agent that modifies the effect of other agents, such as a drug or vaccine, while having few if any direct effects when given by itself...

 (e.g., foot-and-mouth disease
Foot-and-mouth disease
Foot-and-mouth disease or hoof-and-mouth disease is an infectious and sometimes fatal viral disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, including domestic and wild bovids...

 vaccines, helping to enhance the immune response). Initially the crude fraction was used. Later on a purified mixture, called Quil A was developed by Dalsgaard which was more effective and caused less local side reactions. Still Quil A is a mixture of more than 25 different saponin molecules. One of them, the saponin QS21
QS21
QS-21 is a purified plant extract that enhances the ability of the immune system to respond to vaccine antigens. It is derived from the Soap bark tree , which is native to the country of Chile....

, is being investigated for possible beneficial adjuvant effects on the human immune system
Immune system
An immune system is a system of biological structures and processes within an organism that protects against disease by identifying and killing pathogens and tumor cells. It detects a wide variety of agents, from viruses to parasitic worms, and needs to distinguish them from the organism's own...

.

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