Abstract
Codonopsis pilosula polysaccharide (CPP) and rare element selenium (Se) have been proved to exert various biological activities, and our previous study demonstrated that selenium nanoparticles modified with CPP (CPP-SeNPs) possessed significantly enhanced tumor cytotoxicity in vitro. This study aimed to investigated the inhibitory effects of CPP-SeNPs complex on H22 solid tumors via immune enhancement. In this study, the H22 tumor-bearing mice model was constructed, and the potential mechanisms of CPP-SeNPs antitumor effects were further explored by evaluating cytokines expression levels, immune cells activities and tumor cells apoptotic indicators in each group. The results demonstrated that CPP-SeNPs effectively exerted dose-dependent protective effects on the immune organs of tumor-bearing mice in vivo, leading to increase in peripheral white blood cell counts and inhibition of solid tumor growth with inhibitory rate of 47.18% in high-dose group (1.5 mg/kg). Furthermore, CPP-SeNPs treatment significantly elevated the levels of TNF-α, IFN-γ, and IL-2 in mice sera, enhanced NK cell cytotoxicity, augmented macrophage phagocytosis capacity, as well as increased both the amounts and proliferation activity of lymphocyte subsets. CPP-SeNPs improved the immune system's ability to clear tumor cells by up-regulating Bax expression while down-regulating Bcl-2 expression within solid tumors, indicating the potential activation of mitochondrial apoptosis pathway. Therefore, CPP-SeNPs administration can effectively inhibit tumor growth by enhancing immune response in tumor-bearing mice, which might be relevant to the regulation of gut microbiota short-chain fatty acids metabolisms. These findings could provide theoretical support and data foundation for further development of CPP-SeNPs as functional food and drug adjuvants.