Sinomenine inhibits primary CD4 + T‐cell proliferation via apoptosis

Sinomenine is an active component isolated from Sinomenium acutum and is widely used as an immunosuppressive drug for treating autoimmune diseases. CD4 + T‐cell population plays a key role in adaptive immune response and is related to some autoimmune diseases. In this study, we investigated the possible immunosuppressive effect of sinomenine on CD4 + T cells and its underlying mechanism. Our data demonstrated that sinomenine remarkably suppressed the proliferation of CD4 + T cells, blocked the cell cycle progression from G0/G1 phase to S plusG2/M phases. Finally, the immunosuppressive activity elicited by sinomenine in CD4 + primary lymphocytes was found to be largely accounted for by caspase 3‐dependent cells apoptosis. Sinomenine did not significantly alter the expression of bcl‐2 in activated CD4 + primary T cells, suggesting that bcl‐2 might not be involved in sinomenine‐induced T cells apoptosis. In sum, this study proposes a novel mechanism for the immunosuppressive function of sinomenine on primary mouse CD4 + T cells.