Immunomodulatory activity of a novel polysaccharide from Lonicera japonica in immunosuppressed mice induced by cyclophosphamide

Xiaonan Zhou; Qun Dong; Xianzhao Kan; Lihong Peng; Xingyu Xu; Yun Fang; Jialiang Yang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0204152

Immunomodulatory activity of a novel polysaccharide from Lonicera japonica in immunosuppressed mice induced by cyclophosphamide

PLoS One. 2018 Oct 8;13(10):e0204152. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0204152. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Xiaonan Zhou¹, Qun Dong¹, Xianzhao Kan², Lihong Peng³, Xingyu Xu⁴, Yun Fang⁵, Jialiang Yang^{3

6}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Polysaccharide Drug Engineering of Anhui, Wannan Medical College, Wuhu, Anhui, P. R. China.
² College of Life Sciences, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu, P. R. China.
³ College of Information Engineering, Changsha Medical University, Changsha, Hunan, P. R. China.
⁴ College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, P. R. China.
⁵ Department of Mathematics, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, P. R. China.
⁶ Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, United States of America.

Abstract

Lonicera japonica is a typical Chinese herbal medicine. We previously reported a method to isolate polysaccharides from Lonicera japonica (LJP). In this study, we first performed a qualitative analysis of LJP using the Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer (FT-IR) and explored the monosaccharide composition of LJP using the pre-column derivatization high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method. We then investigated the immunomodulatory function of LJP in cyclophosphamide (CTX)-induced immunosuppressed mouse models. The results showed that LJP had the characteristic absorption of typical polysaccharides consisting of 6 types of monosaccharides. In addition, LJP can increase significantly the organ index, splenic lymphocyte proliferation, macrophage phagocytosis, and natural killer (NK) cell activity in CTX-treated mice. LJP could also restore the levels of serum cytokines interleukin (IL-2), tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α) and Interferon-γ (IFN-γ) in the CTX-treated mice. Finally, the results on measuring the T-lymphocytes subsets of spleen also confirmed LJP-induced immunomodulatory activity in immunosuppressed mice from another perspective. Therefore, LJP could be used as a potential immunomodulatory agent.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Cell Proliferation / drug effects
Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid
Cyclophosphamide / adverse effects*
Cytokines / blood
Immunocompromised Host / drug effects*
Immunologic Factors / administration & dosage*
Immunologic Factors / chemistry
Immunologic Factors / pharmacology
Lonicera / chemistry*
Lymphocytes / cytology
Lymphocytes / drug effects
Male
Mice
Plant Extracts / administration & dosage
Plant Extracts / chemistry
Plant Extracts / pharmacology
Polysaccharides / administration & dosage*
Polysaccharides / chemistry
Polysaccharides / pharmacology
Qualitative Research
Random Allocation
Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared
Spleen / drug effects
Spleen / immunology*

Substances

Cytokines
Immunologic Factors
Plant Extracts
Polysaccharides
Cyclophosphamide

Grants and funding

This work was financially supported by the National Science Foundation of China (No. 11201306 and No. 61572327); the Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (No. 13YZ065); the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan, China (Grant No. 2018JJ2461); the Wannan Medical College Young Scientists Research Fund (No. WK201102); and the Anhui Key Laboratory of Polysaccharide Drug Engineering Foundation (No. XZ201176). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.