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A novel polysaccharide (WAMPa) was purified from Atractylodis macrocephala Koidz. WAMPa was characterized with molecular weight (MW) distribution, infrared spectrum, monosaccharide composition, methylation and nuclear magnetic resonance spectra. The backbone of WAMPa was → 2)-β-D-Glcp-(1 → interspersed with a small amount of → 5)-α-D-Araf-(1→, and the branches were the terminal α-D-Glcp-(1 → and β-D-Glcp-(1→. The immunomodulatory activities of WAMPa were investigated on two levels experiments including in vitro RAW264.7 cells and in vivo zebrafish. Meanwhile, the immune-mediated antitumor activity was evaluated by the inhibitory effect of the culture medium from WAMPa-treated RAW264.7 cells on human breast cancer cell line MCF-7. Bioactivity assays showed that WAMPa increased mRNA expression levels of TNF-α, IL-6 and iNOS, enhanced the levels of NO, and promoted the phosphorylation of ERK, p38 and JNK. Taken together, these findings revealed that WAMPa exhibited immunomodulatory effects by regulating MAPK signaling pathway. The antitumor experiments showed that WAMPa did not show a significant growth inhibition ratio on MCF-7 cells, but WAMPa-treated RAW264.7 macrophages could significantly inhibit the growth of MCF-7 cells. Thus, the antitumor activity of WAMPa was mediated mainly through the activation of macrophages. These results suggested that WAMPa could be considered as potential immunomodulatory and antitumor supplements.

Carbonized traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a kind of distinctive traditional drug which has been widely used in various bleeding syndromes for over two thousand years, and most of them are still in clinical use. Although they share similar processing method: stir-frying, there are no specific quality standards and few quality control researches carried out on carbonized TCM up until now. Carbonized Typhae Pollen (CTP) is a typical carbonized TCM with efficacy of eliminating blood stasis and stanching bleeding. In this study, a novel process quality control model coupled with near infrared spectroscopy was established, called Gradient-based Discriminant Analysis method (GDA). Compared with conventional modeling methods (Convolutional Neural Network, Linear Discriminant Analysis, Standard Normal Variate-LDA), GDA model applied in fiber optic probe acquisition mode exhibited highest test accuracy (0.961), satisfactory correct identification (internal validation, 100%; external validation, 97.1%) and excellent model stability. This method provided a perfect guideline for process quality control of Carbonized TCM as well as ensured their clinical efficacy., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)