Department of Medicine, Sichuan General Hospital of Armed Police Force, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
Indian J Pharmacol. 2012 Jan;44(1):78-81. doi: 10.4103/0253-7613.91872.
The objective of the present study is to investigate the anti-proliferation activity of Astragalus on human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells and its mechanism.
Hepatic cancer H22 bearing mice were used to study the anti-hepatocarcinoma activity of Astragalus in vivo. The growth curve and inhibitory rate of tumor growth were measured. Cell apoptosis of each group was measured by flow cytometry (FCM). Protein expression of Bax and Bcl-2 were analyzed by immunohistochemistry (IHC). The Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 13.0 (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL) was used for standard statistical analysis including one-way ANOVA and Student's t-test. A value of P<0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.
Astragalus significantly inhibited the growth of H22 carcinoma, with an inhibitory rate of 17.28-52.36%. FCM and immunohistochemical assay show that the cell apoptosis rate and protein expression of Bax and Bax/Bcl-2 ratio of H22 transplanted tumor in Astragalus treated group were significantly higher than the control group (P<0.05). The protein expression of Bcl-2 was significantly lower than control (P<0.05).
The results of the present study suggest that Astragalus has significant anti-tumor effect in vivo in inducing apoptosis of H22 tumor cells by promoting protein expression of Bax, decreasing protein expression of Bcl-2 gene, and markedly increasing the Bax/Bcl-2 ratio.
本研究旨在探讨黄芪对人肝癌（HCC）细胞的增殖抑制活性及其作用机制。
采用荷肝癌 H22 小鼠模型研究黄芪在体内的抗肝癌活性。测量生长曲线和肿瘤生长抑制率。采用流式细胞术（FCM）检测各组细胞凋亡情况。采用免疫组化（IHC）分析 Bax 和 Bcl-2 蛋白的表达。采用社会科学统计软件包（SPSS Inc，芝加哥，IL）进行标准统计分析，包括单因素方差分析和学生 t 检验。P<0.05 被认为具有统计学意义。
黄芪显著抑制 H22 癌的生长，抑制率为 17.28-52.36%。FCM 和免疫组化检测结果显示，黄芪处理组 H22 移植瘤细胞的凋亡率以及 Bax 和 Bax/Bcl-2 比值的蛋白表达均显著高于对照组（P<0.05）。Bcl-2 蛋白表达明显低于对照组（P<0.05）。
本研究结果表明，黄芪通过促进 Bax 蛋白表达、降低 Bcl-2 基因蛋白表达、显著增加 Bax/Bcl-2 比值，从而诱导 H22 肿瘤细胞凋亡，在体内具有显著的抗肿瘤作用。
