Nabeshima Shigeki, Murata Masayuki, Hamada Maki, Chong Yong, Yamaji Kouzaburo, Hayashi Jun
Department of General Medicine, Kyushu University Hospital, 3-1-1 Maidashi, Higashiku, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan.
Int Immunopharmacol. 2004 Jan;4(1):37-45. doi: 10.1016/j.intimp.2003.10.002.
To investigate the immunological effect of the traditional Japanese herbal medicine (kampo), Hochu-ekki-to (HOT), on dendritic cells (DC), we examined in vitro if HOT would stimulate the maturation process of human monocyte-derived DC as do TNF-alpha and LPS. Monocytes from a healthy volunteer were cultured in the presence of IL-4 and GM-CSF, and the generated immature DC were stimulated with HOT, TNF-alpha, or LPS (HOT-DC, TNF-DC, and LPS-DC, respectively) for 2 days. Flow cytometric analysis showed that HOT stimulated DC to express the surface maturation markers CD80, CD83, and CD86 dose-dependently and that the up-regulation level was identical to TNF-alpha and LPS. The antigen-uptake capacity of HOT-DC was determined by FITC-labeled albumin uptake. HOT-DC lost albumin uptake capacity comparable to LPS-DC, indicating DC maturity. IL-12 (p70) production by HOT-DC and TNF-DC was not increased in comparison with LPS-DC. The antigen-presenting capacity of HOT-DC as analyzed by allogeneic T cell proliferation was significantly increased in comparison with immature DC and was identical to LPS-DC. These results demonstrate that HOT stimulates DC maturation as well as the other known maturation factors, despite low IL-12 production, and suggests the possibility that DC maturation by HOT can play an important role in the improvement of the immunoregulatory function in patients with impaired host defense.
为了研究传统日本草药补中益气汤（Hochu-ekki-to，HOT）对树突状细胞（DC）的免疫作用，我们在体外检测了HOT是否会像肿瘤坏死因子-α（TNF-α）和脂多糖（LPS）那样刺激人单核细胞来源的DC成熟。从健康志愿者获取的单核细胞在白细胞介素-4（IL-4）和粒细胞巨噬细胞集落刺激因子（GM-CSF）存在的情况下进行培养，生成的未成熟DC分别用HOT、TNF-α或LPS刺激2天（分别为HOT-DC、TNF-DC和LPS-DC）。流式细胞术分析表明，HOT能剂量依赖性地刺激DC表达表面成熟标志物CD80、CD83和CD86，且上调水平与TNF-α和LPS相同。通过异硫氰酸荧光素（FITC）标记的白蛋白摄取来测定HOT-DC的抗原摄取能力。HOT-DC与LPS-DC一样失去了白蛋白摄取能力，表明DC成熟。与LPS-DC相比，HOT-DC和TNF-DC产生的白细胞介素-12（p70）没有增加。通过同种异体T细胞增殖分析，HOT-DC的抗原呈递能力与未成熟DC相比显著增加，且与LPS-DC相同。这些结果表明，尽管HOT产生的IL-12较少，但它能像其他已知的成熟因子一样刺激DC成熟，并提示HOT诱导的DC成熟可能在改善宿主防御受损患者的免疫调节功能中发挥重要作用。
