RESUMEN
Ginseng is a traditional Chinese medicine which has been used in treating anemia for thousands of years. It is composed of a lot of components. The main component is total saponin of panax ginseng (TSPG), which contains more than 20 ginsenosides including Rg1, Rb1 and so on. Previous studies have reported that total saponin of panax ginseng could promote hematopoiesis by stimulating proliferation of human erythroid grogenitor cells CFU-E and BFU-E, however, it had different effects on CFU-GM reported by various laboratories. In this study, CFU-GM assay was adopted to observe the ginsenosides Rg1 and Rb1's effects on the proliferation of human marrow grannulocyte-macrophage progenitor cells. The results showed that Rg1 and Rb1 had obvious promotive effect on the proliferation of CFU-GM, and the increasing rates of colony formation were up to (70.6 +/- 6.8)% and (65.1 +/- 6.3)%, respectively. There was no inhibiting effect on CFU-GM in high concentrations of Rg1 and Rb1. It is suggested that Rg1 and Rb1 can stimulate the proliferation of human granulocyte-macrophage progentors. The results of TSPG's various effects on CFU-GM might be caused by different contents of ginsenosides in TSPG used in different laboratories.