Recipient-mediated effect of a traditional Chinese herbal medicine, ren-shen-yang-rong-tang (Japanese name: ninjin-youei-to), on hematopoietic recovery following lethal irradiation and syngeneic bone marrow transplantation.

Ren-shen-yang-rong-tang (Japanese name: Ninjin-youei-to, NYT), a traditional Chinese herbal medicine, was evaluated for recipient-mediated effect on hematopoietic recovery in a murine model of syngeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT). BALB/c recipient mice were preconditioned with a lethal total body irradiation (TBI) at a dose of 6.5 Gy and transplanted with syngeneic bone marrow (BM) cells. NYT treatments, given intraperitoneally (i.p.) once per day for 3 consecutive days in a dose of 0.625 mg, were performed either before or after TBI and BMT to assess any recipient-mediated effect of this compound. NYT pretreatment was as effective as NYT posttreatment in enhancing the total number of colony-forming unit erythroid (CFU-E) and colony-forming unit granulocyte-macrophage (CFU-GM) per marrow and spleen after TBI and BMT. NYT pretreatment caused a significant increase in marrow and splenic CFU-E and CFU-GM numbers over a prolonged period following TBI and BMT, and affected late-stage erythropoiesis (CFU-E) more profoundly than early-stage erythropoiesis (burst-forming unit erythroid, BFU-E). NYT pretreatment significantly accelerate recovery of not only erythrocyte and leukocyte counts but also platelet counts after transplantation with a limited number (1 x 10(5)) of BM cells. The same treatment, however, was significantly less effective in hematopoietic recovery after transplantation with a minimal number (1 x 10(4)) of BM cells, indicating that NYT accelerates recovery of donor-derived rather than recipient-derived cells.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)