[Study on effect of Astragalus membranaceus injection on hematopoiesis in anemic mice with myelosuppression]

To investigate the effect of AMI on hematopoiesis in anemic mice and explore the possible mechanisms.

Anemic mice model resulted from myelosuppression by irradiation and cytotoxic chemotherapeutic compounds were randomly divided into three groups: treated group I, treated group II and anemic control group. Intraperitoneal doses of AMI(500 mg/kg, 1000 mg/kg) were given to the treated group, and equal doses of physiological saline were given to the anemic control group. On 7 days after treatment, the count of whole blood cells and bone marrow cells were determined by blood auto-analyzer. The numbers of CFU-GM (granulocyte and macrophage colony forming unit), CFU-E (colony forming unit-erythroid), BFU-E (burst forming unit-erythroid), CFU-Meg(colony forming unit-megakaryocyte) were determined by using technique of hematopoietic progenitor cells culture in vitro. Expression of anti-apoptosis protein BcL-XL and BcL-2 in BMC were determined by immunohistochemistry.

RBC, HB, PLT (P < 0.05) and BMC (P < 0.01) in treated group I were significantly higher than that of anemic control. The number of CFU-E, BFU-E and CFU-Meg as well as expression of anti-apoptosis protein BcL-XL of BMC in treated group I also were significantly higher than that of anemic control (P <0. 05 or P <0. 01), while numbers of CFU-E as well as expression of anti-apoptosis protenin BcL-XL of BMC in treated group II were higher than that of anemic control (P < 0.05).

AMI can lesson apoptosis of bone marrow cells and promote hematopoietic progenitor cells to differentiate along the erythroid and megakaryocytoid line by up-regulating expression of antiapoptosis protein BcL-XL of BMC.