Mechanisms of antitumor activity of aqueous extracts from Chinese herbs: their immunopharmacological properties.
Previously we reported the antitumor activity of 4 kinds of Chinese herbs: A. capillaris, S. doederleinii, A. macrocephala and S. subprostrata. Evidence has been also presented that A. capillaris shows the activity mainly through a direct tumoricidal action and the others display the activity through the enhancement of tumor-immune response. The present results are as follows: A. capillaris did not affect Meth A tumor-neutralizing activity (Winn's assay) in spleen cells of BALB/c mice bearing the primary tumor. The other herbs enhanced the activity on days 10 and 15 and prevented the decay of the activity on day 20 after the Meth A tumor transplantation. However, none of them enhanced the local graft versus host reaction (GvHR) induced in CBF1 mice by spleen cells of BALB/c mice. A. capillaris hardly affected the humoral antibody formation against sheep red blood cells in mice. On the contrary, the other 3 herbs enhanced the formation. Blast transformation of murine lymphocytes with PHA-P or LPS was suppressed by 10(-5) to 10(-4) g/ml of A. capillaris. A. macrocephala enhanced the response by LPS. It should be noted that A. capillaris showed no immunosuppressive action in spite of having a direct tumoricidal action in vitro. Further investigations will be required on the latter 3 herbs to clarify the relationship between their humoral immunity-stimulating activity and their tumor immunity-enhancing activity.
Mori
H
H
Department of Pharmacology, Gifu Pharmaceutical University, Japan.
Xu
Q
Q
Sakamoto
O
O
Uesugi
Y
Y
Koda
A
A
Nishioka
I
I
D000818:Animals; D000917:Antibody Formation / Q000187:drug effects; D000972:Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic / Q000276:immunology; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal / Q000276:immunology / Q000494:pharmacology*; D005260:Female; D006087:Graft vs Host Reaction / Q000187:drug effects; D008213:Lymphocyte Activation / Q000187:drug effects; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008815:Mice, Inbred Strains; D008934:Mitogens / Q000494:pharmacology; D009374:Neoplasms, Experimental / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000276:immunology; D013154:Spleen / Q000166:cytology; D014410:Tumor Stem Cell Assay
D000972:Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal; D008934:Mitogens