1H NMR-based Investigation of Metabolic Response to Electro-Acupuncture Stimulation

Caigui Lin,Xiaorong Chang,Jiyang Dong,Zhiliang Wei,Kian-Kai Cheng,Huan Zhong,Chang She,Jingjing Xu,Guiping Shen

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-07306-5

Abstract

Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese medicine therapy that has been found useful for treating various diseases. The treatments involve the insertion of fine needles at acupoints along specific meridians (meridian specificity). This study aims to investigate the metabolic basis of meridian specificity using proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR)-based metabolomics. Electro-acupuncture (EA) stimulations were performed at acupoints of either Stomach Meridian of Foot-Yangming (SMFY) or Gallbladder Meridian of Foot-Shaoyang (GMFS) in healthy male Sprague Dawley (SD) rats. 1H-NMR spectra datasets of serum, urine, cortex, and stomach tissue extracts from the rats were analysed by multivariate statistical analysis to investigate metabolic perturbations due to EA treatments at different meridians. EA treatment on either the SMFY or GMFS acupoints induced significant variations in 31 metabolites, e.g., amino acids, organic acids, choline esters and glucose. Moreover, a few meridian-specific metabolic changes were found for EA stimulations on the SMFY or GMFS acupoints. Our study demonstrated significant metabolic differences in response to EA stimulations on acupoints of SMFY and GMFS meridians. These results validate the hypothesis that meridian specificity in acupuncture is detectable in the metabolome and demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of a metabolomics approach in understanding the mechanism of acupuncture.

Highlights

With the aid of modern clinical and experimental techniques, there is increasing evidence regarding the efficacy of acupuncture in ameliorating symptoms of diseases, such as gastroesophageal reflux disease[8], functional dyspepsia[9], insomnia[10], migraines[11], and rheumatoid arthritis[12]
The experimental results showed a number of common metabolic changes caused by EA stimulation as well as specific metabolic perturbations due to EA treatment on either the Stomach Meridian of Foot-Yangming (SMFY) or Gallbladder Meridian of Foot-Shaoyang (GMFS) meridians
The current results suggested that meridian-specific metabolic changes can be detected using a NMR-based metabolomics approach

Summary

Introduction

With the aid of modern clinical and experimental techniques, there is increasing evidence regarding the efficacy of acupuncture in ameliorating symptoms of diseases, such as gastroesophageal reflux disease[8], functional dyspepsia[9], insomnia[10], migraines[11], and rheumatoid arthritis[12]. Interest in applying NMR-based metabolomics to study the metabolic changes following acupuncture treatment is increasing[16,17,18,19,20]. We used a proton nuclear magnetic resonance- (1H NMR-) based metabolomics approach to investigate the metabolic perturbations due to acupuncture at two different specific meridians, namely, the Stomach Meridian of Foot-Yangming (SMFY) and Gallbladder Meridian of Foot-Shaoyang (GMFS) meridians. Electro-acupuncture (EA) treatment on acupoints along the SMFY meridian proved effective in enhancing gastrointestinal motility, improving gastric mucosal blood flow, and protecting gastric mucosa from www.nature.com/scientificreports/. EA treatment on acupoints in the GMFS meridian was found to promote bile production, secretion, and release to facilitate digestion, improve insomnia and to alleviate migraines[24, 25]. Our primary purpose is to validate the hypothesis that meridian specificity in acupuncture is detectable in the metabolome and to provide specific metabolic patterns induced by acupuncture stimuli on different meridians

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Conclusion