Yamashiki M, Asakawa M, Kayaba Y, Kosaka Y, Nishimura A
Dept. of Laboratory Medicine, Mie University School of Medicine, Tsu, Japan.
J Clin Lab Immunol. 1992;37(2):83-90.
The herbal medicine "Sho-saiko-to (Xiao-Chai-Hu-Tang)" has been used in China for about 3000 years for the treatment of pyretic diseases. This medicine is now available as one of the prescribing drugs approved by the Ministry of Health and Welfare of Japan, and has also been widely used for patients with chronic viral liver disease as one of biological response modifiers in the field of Japan's Western Medicine. However, its mode of action has not been fully described. In the present in vitro study, we added "Sho-saiko-to" (TJ-9, Tsumura, Tokyo) to the culture of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) obtained from healthy volunteers, and observed a dose-dependent increase in the production of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF). The same experiment was conducted using other herbal medicines "Dai-saiko-to" (TJ-8) and "Saiko-keishi-to" (TJ-10) which showed similar effects, or "Sho-seiryu-to" (TJ-19) which consists of very different compounds and shows different efficacy. The increases of G-CSF production were similar when "Sho-saiko-to" (TJ-9) or one of the 2 reference drugs (TJ-8 and 10) was added, whereas the increase when the control drug "Sho-seiryu-to" (TJ-19) was added, was quite small. This result shows that G-CSF induction is not a common effect of herbal medicines, but a specific effect of TJ-8, 9, and 10. Among these 3 drugs the increase produced by "Sho-saiko-to" was the largest. Based on this result, we conclude that administration of "Sho-saiko-to" may be useful not only for the treatment of chronic liver disease, but also for malignant diseases and acute infectious diseases where G-CSF is efficacious.
草药“小柴胡汤”在中国已被用于治疗热病约3000年。这种药物现在是日本厚生省批准的处方药之一，在日本西医领域也作为生物反应调节剂之一被广泛用于慢性病毒性肝病患者。然而，其作用方式尚未完全阐明。在目前的体外研究中，我们将“小柴胡汤”（TJ - 9，津村，东京）添加到从健康志愿者获得的外周血单核细胞（PBMC）培养物中，观察到粒细胞集落刺激因子（G - CSF）的产生呈剂量依赖性增加。使用其他草药“大柴胡汤”（TJ - 8）和“柴胡桂枝汤”（TJ - 10）进行了相同的实验，它们显示出类似的效果，或者使用由非常不同的化合物组成且显示不同功效的“小青龙汤”（TJ - 19）。当添加“小柴胡汤”（TJ - 9）或两种参考药物之一（TJ - 8和10）时，G - CSF产量的增加相似，而当添加对照药物“小青龙汤”（TJ - 19）时，增加量相当小。该结果表明，G - CSF诱导不是草药的常见作用，而是TJ - 8、9和10的特定作用。在这三种药物中，“小柴胡汤”产生的增加量最大。基于这一结果，我们得出结论，服用“小柴胡汤”不仅可能对慢性肝病的治疗有用，而且对G - CSF有效的恶性疾病和急性传染病也可能有用。
