Abstract
Patrinia heterophylla Bunge, a traditional Chinese herb, has long been used for therapy of many kinds of diseases, including cancer. Its extract or pure compound has displayed anti-proliferative effect on cancer cells as well. However, the underlying mechanism(s) by which P. heterophylla Bunge exhibited anti-tumor activity in vivo remains to be further elucidated. Herein, we investigated the effect of total flavonoid from P. heterophylla Bunge, named as PHBF, on mice bearing cervical cancer. As a result, the oral administration of PHBF (250 and 500 mg/kg BW) had significant inhibitory effect on tumor volume and weight. In addition, PHBF treatment increased thymus index of tumor-bearing mice in a dose-dependent manner (P<0.01). Further analysis revealed that cervical cancer cell from tumor-bearing mice treated with PHBF underwent significant apoptosis, which was accompanied by the decrease of PCNA and Bcl-2 expression and increase of Bax and cleaved caspase 3 expression. Interestingly, PHBF treatment also induced more CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of tumor-bearing mice. Furthermore, we observed that the serum level of interferon gamma (IFN-γ) and interleukin-2 (IL-2) was significant higher in mice treated with PHBF than those of control group, implicating that PHBF could function as an immunomodulatory agent. Taken together, these data suggested that PHBF harbored anti-tumor properties against cervical cancer and up-regulated immune response, therefore paving a path to develop as a potential therapeutic and preventive agent for cervical treatment.