Immunoenhancement and antioxidative damage effects of Polygonum Cillinerve polysaccharide on RAW264.7 cells.

Objectives: The effects of Polygonum Cillinerve polysaccharide (PCP) on the immune and antioxidant activity were studied. Methods: The effects of PCP on cell proliferation, phagocytic activity, cell uptake, the secretion of NO, iNOS, IL-6, IL-12, CAT and POD, intracellular ROS, cell apoptosis and antioxidative mechanism were measured by MTT, ELISA, fluorescence staining, flow cytometry and western blot. Key findings: The results showed that PCP had no toxic effect at 31.25–1.95 µg/ml, could improve the uptake of neutral red and fluorescein isothiocyanate-labelled ovalbumin and promote the release of nitric oxide and nitric oxide synthase. Moreover, PCP also could promote the secretion of IL-6 and IL-12. The damage of RAW264.7 cells induced by hydrogen peroxide was significantly alleviated by PCP at 15.63–0.975 µg/ml. The mechanism of antioxidative damage might be that PCP inhibited the upstream p38 and the phosphorylation of JNK and ERK proteins, and down-regulated caspase 3 and up-regulated the protein expressions of cytochrome C and Bcl-2, finally PCP improved the antioxidative capacity and protected the oxidative damage of cells. Conclusions: These results indicated that PCP had the better immunopotentiation and antioxidative damage activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]