Abstract
The Chinese herbal medicine has been administered in traditional Chinese therapy for well over two thousand years. However, the pharmacological study of Chinese herbs on biological objects is still in its infancy. Modernization of Chinese medicine has provoked great interest among bio-medical researchers globally. In order to reach this goal, should set up a set of methods by scientific experiment first, to comment the Chinese herbal medicine curative effect labeled in the Chinese medicine ancient books and records. This study focuses on the effects of Chinese herbal medicine on the immunological function. Dendritic cells (DCs) are most potent antigen-presenting cells in the human body which involved in the regulation of both innate and adaptive immune responses. Based on its function, DCs can be used as therapeutic targets for investigating the immunomodulation of Chinese herbal medicine, not only estimating the innate immune response but also estimating the adaptive immune response. This study is based on the characteristic of DCs to set up a platform for analyzing the immune function. We examined the effect of Cordyceps sinensis (CS) on dendritic cells in different physiological stages respectively. In the results of CS, CS can exert differential immunomodulatory effects on DCs upon different physiological states, naïve-stage DCs and LPS-activated DCs. Our experimental results demonstrate that CS activates immature DCs and enhances immature DCs maturation, increases proinflammatory cytokine secretion by DCs, and promotes T cell proliferation and Th1 polarization. On the other hand, CS suppresses the LPS-induced inflammatory response by decreasing the LPS-induced DC maturation, inhibiting proinflammatory cytokine secretion by DCs, reducing the LPS-activated DC-elicited allogeneic T cell proliferation, and shifting the LPS-activated DC-driven Th1 response toward a Th2 response. Additionally, we further examine the effective mechanisms of CS on DCs using microarray technology. By the results of cDNA microarray, we found several immunoregulation-related genes and inflammation-related genes. Furthermore, we classified the unique genes that specific regulated by CS treatment on DCs upon different physiological states. Our results indicate the possible pharmacological mechanisms mediated by CS on DCs at different stages.