Study On Regulative Mechanism Of TSPG Responsible For Human Hematopoiesis At Early Stage

Panax gingseng is a well-known Chinese traditional medicine functional in "invigorating qi". Saponins of panax ginseng are one of the main effective fractions extracted from Panax ginseng. Our previous study suggested that total saponins of panax ginseng (TSPG) play a special role in invigorating hematopoiesis, it can markedly promote the proliferation anddifferentiation of murine multi-potential hematopoietic stem cells (CFU-S) and hematopoietic progenitor cells of myeloid lineage, such as CFU-E, BFU-E, CFU-GM, and CFU-MK.In our study, the techniques of culturing hematopoietic progenitor cell in semisolid methyl cellulose in vitro and biologic assay are used to analyze the effect of TSPG itself and of the culture media of bone marrow stromal cells, endothelial cells, monocytes, thymocytes and splenocytes induced by TSPG on the proliferation and differentiation of human CFU-Mix. The purpose is to study the effect of TSPG on human hematopoiesis at early stage, and to provide Chinese traditional medicine theory of Panax ginseng with the experimental evidence of modern biological medicine.The experimental results indicate that: 1.after culturing bone marrow mononuclear cells in semisolid methyl cellulose for 12 days, the grown cell balls are identified through the technique of Wright's staining, histocytochemistry and immunocytochemistry as mixed colonies which derived from multi-potential progenitor cells of myeloid lineage; 2.TSPG can markedly promote the proliferation and differentiation of CFU-Mix when providing extra basic hematopoietic growth factors (HGF) such as IL-3, EPO, GM-CSF; 3.to a certain degree, the unstimulated culture media of bone marrow stromal cells, thymocytes and splenocytes has somestimulation on the colony-forming of CFU-Mix, yet the conditioned culture media induced by TSPG can obviously increase the colony-forming yields of CFU-Mix, it gives us a hint that the culture media of those cells contains more active substance relative to HGF; 4.the conditioned culture media of endothelial cells and monocytes induced by TSPG can enhance the proliferation and differentiation of CFU-Mix significantly, it indicates that the culture media of those cells contains active substance relative to HGF.To sum up, we speculate that TSPG can promote hematopoiesis at early stage markedly. TSPG can directly and/or indirectly stimulate lymphocytes and bone marrow stromal cells such as endothelial cells, monocytes, fibroblasts in hematopoietic inductive microenvironment (HIM) to produce and secrete HGFs, thus promote the proliferation and differentiation of CFU-Mix, this may be one of the cellular and molecular biologic mechanisms of TSPG responsible for hematopoiesis.