Study On The Immune Modulatory Function And The Molecular Mechanism Of Radix Sanguisorbae And Sanguisorba Saponins

Dysfunctions of immune regulation caused various disorders, such as autoimmune diseases, allergies, cancers and susceptibility to microbe infections. Drugs that modulate the immune response, such as immune enhancer agents, significantly improved the treatments for many immune dysfunctional diseases. Currently, immune modulators are extensively applied in clinical settings, which play important role in modulating the body immune response activities via targeting the humoral immunity and cell-mediated immunity pathways.There are many various bioactive compounds discovered from Chinese herbs, which including many immune enhancer agents. The Radix Sanguisorbae, a well-known Chinese herb, was reported with various bioactivities, such as anticoagulation, cell proliferation, anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties. It was also reported that Radix Sanguisorbae could be used as immune enhancer agent in traditional Chinese medicine. However, which specific bioactive compounds from Radix Sanguisorbae involve in the immune modulatory function and the underlying molecular mechanism are still unknown. In this thesis, we examined the immune stimulation functions of Radix Sanguisorbae crude extract, Sanguisorba Saponins I and Sanguisorba Saponins II, using lymphocytes isolated from mouse spleen.Firstly, the MTT assay indicated that the Radix Sanguisorbae crude extract, Sanguisorba Saponins I and Sanguisorba Saponins II significantly induced the cell proliferation of mouse splenic lymphocytes, and the results exhibited dose-dependent manner within concentration of 0.2-125 g/mL(all P values < 0.01). Secondary, we further examined cytokines induction of mouse lymphocytes by Radix Sanguisorbae crude extract, Sanguisorba Saponins I and Sanguisorba Saponins II using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA). Our results showed that interleukin 2(IL-2), interleukin 10(IL-10), interleukin 12(IL-12), interferon gamma(IFNgamma) were significantly overexpressed when induced by Radix Sanguisorbae crude extract, Sanguisorba Saponins I and Sanguisorba Saponins II. And similar to the MTT assay, the secretion of above cytokines from mouse splenic lymphocytes exhibited dose-dependent manner. On the contrary, the secretion of interleukin 4(IL-4) from mouse splenic lymphocytes induced by all drugs was decreased with a dose-dependent manner.In conclusion, our data suggested that Radix Sanguisorbae, especially the compounds of Sanguisorba Saponins I and Sanguisorba Saponins II, may be potent immune enhancer agents. Further mechanism and clinical trial studies are needed to develop the compounds of Sanguisorba Saponins I and Sanguisorba Saponins II as promoting new drugs to benefit patients with immune dysfunctions.