Adjuvants are chemical/biological substances that are used in vaccines to increase immunogenicity of antigens. Astragaloside VII (AST VII), a triterpenoid saponin isolated from Astragalus species, stimulates Th1 mediated immune response with antigen specific antibody response. The main goals of this thesis are synthesis of immunologically active analogs of AST VII and identifying immunomodulatory mechanism of actions of AST VII. The impact of AST VII and its synthesized analogs (dicarboxylic AST VII: DC-AST VII and dodecylamine conjugated AST VII: DAC-AST VII) on the cytokine release profile of human whole blood cells (hWB), dendritic cell maturation and subsequently T cell activation were analyzed by using flow cytometry and ELISA. IL-1 and IL-17A cytokines were substantially induced on hWB following treatments of the compounds. The most potent compounds were: DAC-AST VII (3.32 fold) for production of IL-1, AST VII (5.05 fold) for production of IL-17A. AST VII was more effective than DAC-AST VII (7.52 fold versus 1.34) in IL-1 production in BMDCs (bone marrow derived dendritic cells). The co-stimulation with AST VII and LPS enhanced dendritic cell maturation and activation by upregulating MHC II, CD86 and CD80, as well as IL-12 induction. All compounds were able to activate CD4+ and CD8+ T cells via increasing CD44 expression. Inflammasome activation may have a role in AST VII induced IL-1 secretion, dendritic cell maturation and T cell activation. However, more detailed molecular mechanism studies are warranted to substantiate our findings and to put forward signaling pathways involved.