Effects of Astragalus polysaccharide (APS) on cytokine and immune function impairment induced by cisplatin in mice bearing Lewis lung cancer / 中国实验动物学报

ABSTRACT

Objective To observe the effects of Astragalus polysaccharide ( APS) on tumor growth, cytokine and immune function impairment induced by cisplatin ( DDP) in mice bearing Lewis lung cancer.Methods A total of 90 mice were used in this study10 for blank control group, and 80 mice with transplanted Lewis lung cancer were randomly divided into 8 groupsmodel control group (physiological saline), positive control group treated with DDP (6 mg/kg), low dose APS (50 mg/kg), moderate dose APS (100 mg/kg) and high dose APS (200 mg/kg) groups and three combinations of APS+DDP groups ( the same three APS levels with half dose of DDP, respectively) .0.3 mL of the drugs was intraper-itoneally injected to the mice, respectively, on the second day after moldeling.DDP was injected once a week and other drugs were injected once per day for consecutive 20 days.On the 21st day, blood samples were collected and serum levels of cytokine IL-2, IL-6, IL-12 and TNF-αwere determined by ELISA, and the tumor inhibition rate and immune organ in-dexes were assessed.Results The tumor inhibition rates of the positive control, low, moderate and high dose APS groups and three combinations of APS+DDP groups of mice bearing Lewis lung carcinoma were 49.30%, 17.21%, 39.68%, 17.21%, 51.02%, 57.21%and 65.11%, respectively.Compared with the model group, P<0.05 or P<0.01, and compared the three combination groups with the DDP group, P<0.05.Compared with the blank control group, the spleen index was significantly increased in the moderate and high dose APS groups and the three combinations of APS +DDP groups.There was a significant difference between the spleen indexes of the model control group, and the spleen indexes of high dose APS and the combination with high dose APS groups were significantly higher than that of the model control group (P<0.05).Compared with the DDP group, APS in various doses and combinations increased the thymus index and spleen index.Conclusions APS can improve the levels of cytokine IL -2, IL-6, IL-12 and TNF-αin mice bearing Lewis lung cancer, enhance the immune function impairment induced by DDP, has certain protective effect on the immune organs, and inhibit the growth of Lewis lung cancer in mice.When APS is used in combination with a half-dose of DDP, APS enhanced the inhibition of tumor growth.This mechanism may be related to the enhanced body immune function.Our results indicate that APS enhances the therapeutic effect of DDP and reduces its toxicity, therefore, may have potential application value in future treatment of solid tumors.