Abstract
Traditional Chinese Medicine has used Tonics as a drug to tonify the deficient of the body, enhance the resistance of disease, and invigorate the physiological function of the body. The use of Tonics drug is somehow sharing the similar idea of using cytokines to boots up host immunity in Western Medicine. Cordyceps sinensis (CS) has been used to treat many illnesses in Chinese society for a long time. We have studied the influences on mice immune function under the model of feeding CS as an immune adjuvant. Prostate cancer cell lines, TRAMP C1, were injected subcutaneously into the right flank of C57BL/6J mice to establish a tumor model. Compare the effect of tumor growth and immune activity weather feeding CS or not after treated with chemo-drug, Taxol. The results show that the mice treated with CS have delayed tumor re-growth. In immune function assay, uptake of CS recovered the polymorphonuclrar leukocyte level in blood which has decreased by Taxol treatment. It also promoted T cell sensitivity to antigen, increased cytotoxic T cell responses, and activated T cell to secrete interferon -γ . We demonstrate that cordyceps sinensis could modulate the immune response and facilitate the recovery of immune function after chemo-therapy. It also delays tumor re-growth significantly.