Phenotypic and functional analysis of the modification of murine bone marrow dendritic cells (BMDCs) induced by neutral Ginseng polysaccharides (NGP).

In this study, we reveal that a neutral polysaccharide isolated from a Chinese medicinal herb, named Ginseng (Panaxgiseng C.A. Meyer), promotes maturation of BMDCs via inducing changes both inside and outside BMDCs, as well as changes of functions. These affects of NGP on BMDCs were evaluated with use of conventional scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), transmission electronic microscopy (TEM) for morphology of BMDCs, flow cytometry (FCM) for key surface markers of BMDCs, cytochemistry assay, FITC-dextran, bio-assay for their phagocytosis and enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for cytokine production by BMDCs. Our results proved that NGP induced maturation of BMDCs as reflected by the downregulation of acid phosphatase (ACP) activity inside the BMDCs, which occurs when phagocytosis of BMDCs decreased, while antigen presentation increased upon maturation. These data also revealed higher expression of MHC II, CD80, CD86, CD83, CD40 and secretion of higher level of IL-12 and low level of TNF-α. Our approach suggests that NGP could therefore stimulate the maturation of murine BMDCs through a series of regulation to the BMDCs.