Abstract: Objective: To find out whether chickpea peptides has antitumor and immune-enhancing activity in hepatoma H22-bearing mice. Methods: KM mice were randomly divided to normal control group, positive control group (PC), tumor control group and chickpea peptide groups at the doses of 50, 100 mg/(kg·d) and 200 mg/(kg·d). The H22-bearing mice were treated with chickpea peptide and Cy by gavage at the volume of 0.2 mL/mouse per day for 10 consecutive days. Distilled water was used for the normal control group. The body weight, tumor growth, tumor inhibitory rate, thymus index, spleen index, cell-mediated immune functions including lymphocyte proliferation, peritoneal macrophage phagocytosis and splenic lymphocytes were detected at 24 h after the last administration. Results: An inhibitory tend of tumor growth was observed in the chickpea peptide group. Compared with the tumor control group, a significant increase in relative spleen weight, delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH), peritoneal macrophage phagocytotic activity and splenic lymphocyte in the chickpea groups was also observed. However, no dose-dependent effect was achieved. Conclusion: Peptides derived from chickpea have anti-tumor activity probably by enhancing immune functions in hepatoma H22-bearing mice. The detailed mechanism remains to be further studied.

Key words: chickpea, anti-tumor, hepatoma-H22, immune function