Yi-qi-yang-yin-tian-sui-fang enhances cisplatin-induced tumor eradication and inhibits interleukin-7 reduction in non-small cell lung cancer

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been recognized to be conducive to enhancing the efficiency and reducing the side effects in the whole course of cancer treatment. The mechanisms of TCM/chemotherapy combination involved with interleukin-7 (IL-7) potentially enhance immune responses against tumor. In the present study, we emphasized on a herbal formulation Yi-qi-yang-yin-tian-sui-fang or TCM for short, and investigated its roles in chemotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The mice bared with tumor were treated with cisplatin (DDP) and simultaneously administrated with/without low, medium and high doses of TCMs (effective content: 0.5, 2.0 and 8.0 g/per mice) via oral gavage. The results indicated that combination of TCM further elevated the therapy efficiency of DDP in a dose-dependent manner. The growth of tumor cells was estimated by Ki-67 stain and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick-end labeling (TUNEL) assay. The addition of TCM to the DDP treatment could significantly decrease the expression of Ki-67 and promote the apoptosis of tumor cells. In addition, the serum IL-7 level was down-regulated by DDP but restored by the treatment of TCM. The expression of IL-7 and its receptor IL-7R in tumor tissues was also recovered by TCM. Furthermore, the side effect from bone marrow suppression (myelosuppression) induced by DDP were assessed. TCM could abrogate DDP-induced apoptosis of bone marrow and also remarkably induced the expressions of IL-7 and hematopoietic growth factors including G-CSF, GM-CSF, SCF, and SDF-1 in bone marrow. These data indicated that this TCM combined with DDP showed superior anti-tumor effects with reduced myelosuppression via up-regulating IL-7.