Electro-acupuncture at Neiguan pretreatment alters genome-wide gene expressions and protects rat myocardium against ischemia-reperfusion.

Abstract

This study investigated genome-wide gene expressions and the cardioprotective effects of electro-acupuncture pretreatment at the PC6 Neiguan acupoint on myocardial ischemia reperfusion (I/R) injury. Male SD rats were randomly divided into four groups: sham operation (SO), I/R, electro-acupuncture at the PC6 Neiguan acupoint pretreatment (EA) and electro-acupuncture at non-acupoint pretreatment (NA). Compared with the I/R group, the survival rate of the EA group was significantly increased, the arrhythmia score, infarction area, serum concentrations of CK, LDH and CK-Mb and plasma level of cTnT were significantly decreased. RNA-seq results showed that 725 genes were up-regulated and 861 genes were down-regulated under I/R conditions compared to the SO group; both EA and NA reversed some of these gene expression levels (592 in EA and 238 in NA group). KEGG pathway analysis indicated that these genes were involved in multiple pathways, including ECM, MAPK signaling, apoptosis, cytokine and leukocyte pathways. In addition, some pathways were uniquely regulated by EA, but not NA pretreatment, such as oxidative stress, cardiac muscle contraction, gap junction, vascular smooth muscle contraction, hypertrophic, NOD-like receptor, and P53 and B-cell receptor pathways. This study was first to reveal the gene expression signatures of acute myocardial I/R injury and electro-acupuncture pretreatment in rats.

• Authors: Yan Huang, Sheng-Feng Lu, Chen-Jun Hu, Shu-Ping Fu, Wei-Xing Shen, Wan-Xin Liu, Qian Li, Ning Wang, Su-Yun He, Fan-Rong Liang, Bing-Mei Zhu
• Journal: Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) (Molecules) Vol. 19 Issue 10 Pg. 16158-78 (Oct 09 2014) ISSN: 1420-3049 [Electronic] Switzerland
• PMID: 25302705 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)

Topics

• Acupuncture Therapy (methods)
• Animals
• Cluster Analysis
• Disease Models, Animal
• Electrocardiography
• Gene Expression
• Gene Expression Profiling
• Gene Expression Regulation
• Genome-Wide Association Study
• Male
• Myocardial Reperfusion Injury (genetics, metabolism, mortality, prevention & control, therapy)
• Rats
• Reproducibility of Results
• Signal Transduction