Research Article Identification of Immunomodulatory Signatures Induced by American Ginseng in Murine Immune Cells

Copyright © 2013 Jian Yan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius, AG) has beenused formore than 300 years. Someof its claimedbenefits can be attributed to the immunomodulatory activities, whose molecular mechanisms are largely unknown.Methods. Murine splenic cells from adult male C57BL/6 (B6) mice were isolated and divided into 4 groups to mimic 4 basic pathophysiological states: (1) normal näıve; (2) normal activated; (3) deficient naı̈ve; (4) deficient activated.Then, different AG extracts were added to all groups for 24 h incubation. MTT proliferation assays were performed to evaluate the phenotypic features of cells. Finally, microarray assays were carried out to identify differentially expressed genes associated with AG exposure. Real-time PCR was performed to validate the expression of selected genes. Results. Microarray data showed that most of gene expression changes were identified in the deficient näıve group, suggesting that the pathophysiological state hasmajor impacts on transcriptomic changes associatedwithAGexposure. Specifically, this study revealed downregulation of interferon