• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.35 no.9
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• pp.1127-1132
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• 2006

In our previous study, a novel herb mixture (HIM-I) of Angelica gigas radix, Cnidium officinale rhizoma, and Paeonia japonica radix was developed to protect the intestinal and immune systems and promote its recovery against radiation damage. A new herbal composition (HemoHIM) with the high immune modulating activity was developed from HIM-I. HIM-I was fractionated into ethanol fraction (HIM-I-E) and polysaccharide fraction (HIM-I-P). And HemoHIM was prepared by adding HIM-I-P to HIM-I. HemoHIM showed more effective than HIM-I in immune modulation as well as radioprotection. The present study is designed to investigate the protective effects of HIM-I, HIM-I-P, and HemoHIM on hydrogen peroxide $(H_2O_2)$ induced apoptosis of human promyelocytic leukemia (HL-60) cells. It was shown that $H_2O_2$ treatment reduced the viability of cells, and increased appearance of DNA ladders, hypodiploid (subG1) cells, and phosphatidylserine translocation level. Pretreatment of HemoHIM significantly reduced the cytotoxic effect induced by $H_2O_2$, associated with reducing the translocation of phosphatidylserine, hypodiploid cells and DNA ladders. HemoHIM appeared to be more protective than HIM-I against $H_2O_2$ induced apoptosis whereas, it exhibited similar activity to HIM-I-P. These results indicated that HemoHIM might be an useful agent for protection against oxidative stress $(H_2O_2)-induced$ apoptosis as well as immune modulation, especially since it is a relatively nontoxic natural product.