EFFECT OF ASTRAGALUS POLYSACCHARIDE ON RIBONUCLEIC ACID METABOLISM
摘要
APS, a polysaccharide extracted from Astrgalus mongolious, is a polymer composed of arabinose and glucose. It has wide biological activities. We found for the first time the interesting phenomena that when such polysacharide type compounds were given as intraperitoneal injections to mice, at the daily dosage of 200 mg/kg for 7 days, the spleen enlarged and the amount of RNA per spleen wet weight increased by 18%, but the rate of incorporation of ~3H～UR into RNA decreased by 81%.If a single dose of 500 mg/kg was injected, the rate of incorporation of ~3H-UR decreased by 45% at 6 hrs after administration, the spleen weight increased significantly at 48 hrs after injection, and the amount of RNA per spleen weight increased by 10～14%. All these 3 effeots maintained more than 5 days. APS has similar effects on the other reticuloendothelial tissues, such as liver and lymph node, but no effect on thymus, heart and brain. DNA metabolism was not changed, the other polysaccharides, e. g. dextrans(M. W. 15,000 or 150, 000) when tested simu taneously have similar but lesser effects on RNA motabolism.