| Pregnancy is a complex process regulated precisely at multilevels by numerous factors such as hormones, cytokines and other molecules, however, the functions of most these factors during pregnancy has not been fully elucidated. The etiological causes of recurrent reproductive failure are diverse, many of them are not evident in routine clinical practice and some are still unknown to sophisticated researchers in the field of reproduction medicine. Generally the causes of recurrent pregnancy loss are classified as genetic, endocrinologic, anatomic, immunologic, microbiologic, and environmental. There is much evidence that cytokines play a vital role in the establishment and maintenance of pregnancy by modulating immune and endocrine systems. Evidence from many studies on murine and human pregnancy points to a strong association between maternal Th2-type immunity and successful pregnancy on the one hand and between Thl-type immune reactivity and pregnancy loss on the other. Th2-type immunity cells may play protective roles during pregnancy. Progesterone and estrogen are central to the maintenance of pregnancy, and is thus the ideal target for fertility regulation. Progesterone and estrogen have been known to exert extensive effects via progesterone receptor (PR) and estrogen receptor (ER) on diverse physiological and developmental functions of the pregnancy, meanwhile, the receptor expression patterns change dramatically during pregnancy process.Chinese herbal medicines has been used for the empirical treatment of various diseases, especially recurrent or habitual abortion, and reported to be clinically effective for these patients or animals. However, the mechanism of the therapeutic effects remains uncertain. Therefore, we investigated the immunologic and endocrinologic mechanism of Chinese herbs in the treatment of abortion. Spragye-Dawley (SD) rats injected with Lipopolysaccharides (LPS) 1 g in tail vein on Day 7 of pregnancy were used as aborting model. The rats were randomly divided into five groups: the control group, the abortion model group, the group treated with the Astragalus Polyaccharin, the group treated with the Epimedii herba and the group treated with Radix scutellariae and Rhizoma atractylodisdecoction. The control group and the abortion model group were given normal saline 2ml from Day 4 to Day 9 of pregnancy via gastrogavage, all the three treated groups were given Astragalus Polyaccharin, Epimedii herba and Radix scutellariae and Rhizoma atractylodis decoction 2ml respectively during the same period. All the rats were killed on Day 10 of pregnancy, abortion ratios were assessed and blood and uterine tissue samples were taken for the determination of Thl/Th2 type cytokines. The concentrations of Thl/Th2 cytokines in plasma and uterine tissues were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbant assay (ELISA) method) the ER and PR contents in the uterine tissues were also measured by ELISA method. ER mRNA and PR mRNA in the uterine tissue preparations were determined by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR). The uterine sections were prepared for the histological observations. The significant findings in the current research include:1. A high miscarriage rate up to 72.73% was observed in the LPS induced abortion group in contrast to the control group, which was only 8.33%.2. Significantly higher concentrations of Th2 cytokines interleukin-4(IL-4), interleukin-l0(IL-l0) were monitored both in blood plasma and uterine tissue preparations of the rats in the control group and the groups treated with the Chinese herbs than the rats in the LPS induced abortion model group(P<0.01), while significantly higher concentrations of Th1 cytokines interleukin-2 (IL-2), tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and gamma-interferon (IFN) were found in the rats in abortion group as compared to normal pregnancy rats and the rats treated with Chinese herbs(P<0.01), indicating that a distinct Th2-bias in normal pregnancy and a Thl-bias in abortion model.3. Signif...
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