Polysaccharides from Ganoderma lucidum have been demonstrated to possess diverse biological activities. Despite lots of studies on the biological activities of Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharide (GLP), little is known regarding the medicinal potential of low-molecular weight enzymatically hydrolyzed Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharide (EGLP). EGLP was prepared by enzymatic degradation and its potential effects in U14 cervical tumor-bearing mice were evaluated. Both GLP and EGLP delayed tumor growth of the tumor xenograft. The EGLP was superior to native polysaccharide. Moreover, EGLP treatment could effectively protect the immune organs of U14 cervical carcinoma-bearing mice. In addition, the EGLP treatment ameliorated oxidative stress as compared with cyclophosphamide (CTX). Compared with the MC group, the expression of Bcl-2 and COX-2 was obviously decreased by EGLP treatment, whereas the expression of Bax and cleaved caspase-3 was obviously increased. These results indicated that EGLP showed stronger antitumor activity with lower toxic effects and had the potential to be a novel antitumor agent.
Keywords: apoptosis; cervical carcinoma; enzymatically hydrolyzed polysaccharide.