Immunosupressive mechanism of cornus officinalis glycosides on the corneal allograft rejection in rats

AIM: To investigate the influence of the cornus officinalis glycosides (COG) on immunological function of corneal transplantation model of rats, and to clarify the immunosuppressive mechanism of COG through observing the activation of lymphocytes in blood. METHODS: Wister rats were used as recipients and SD rats were used as corneal graft donors, then the corneal allografts transplantation model on the closed colony rats were set up. Splenocytes proliferation and mixed lymphocyte reaction of Wister rats activated by ConA were observed. The phenotype change of CD4, CD8, CD25 in blood in different time postoperatively were observed by the di-sign flow cytometry, and the rate of CD4/CD8 was calculated. RESULTS: 1. The COG suppressed the proliferation of T lymphocytes and one-way mixed lymphocyte reaction on the corneal allografting. 2. The phenotype change of lymphocytes in boold was as follows: there was no significant difference between the different time of the CD4, CD8 expression and the CD4/CD8 rate in blood of the control group. The CD4 positive cells expressed CD25 postoperatively increased obviously. The CD4/CD8 rate of medicine group had the tendency to decrease. The CD4 positive cells expressed CD25 postoperation in the medicine group were less than that in the control group obviously. CONCLUSION: The suppression of the T lymphocyte proliferation, mixed lymphocyte reaction, CD molecule expressed by the activated T lymphocytes and the IL-2 receptor expression may be the main immunosuppressive mechanisms of Cornus officinalis glycosides on the cell-mediated immunity.