Abstract
BackgroundElectroacupuncture (EA) has been widely used to alleviate diverse pains. Accumulated clinical experiences and experimental observations indicated that significant differences exist in sensitivity to EA analgesia for individuals of patients and model animals. However, the molecular mechanism accounting for this difference remains obscure.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe classified model male rats into high-responder (HR; TFL changes >150) and non-responder (NR; TFL changes ≤0) groups based on changes of their pain threshold detected by tail-flick latency (TFL) before and after 2 Hz or 100 Hz EA treatment. Gene expression analysis of spinal dorsal horn (DH) revealed divergent expression in HR and NR after 2 Hz/100 Hz EA. The expression of the neurotransmitter system related genes was significantly highly regulated in the HR animals while the proinflammation cytokines related genes were up-regulated more significantly in NR than that in HR after 2 Hz and 100 Hz EA stimulation, especially in the case of 2 Hz stimulation.Conclusions/SignificanceOur results suggested that differential regulation and coordination of neural-immune related genes might play an important role for individual variations in analgesic effects responding to EA in DH. It also provided new candidate genes related to EA responsiveness for future investigation.
Highlights
Acupuncture has been used in China and other Asian countries for more than 2500 years and in western countries for decades [1]
Conclusions/Significance: Our results suggested that differential regulation and coordination of neural-immune related genes might play an important role for individual variations in analgesic effects responding to EA in dorsal horn (DH)
In order to explore the molecular mechanisms underlying the individual variation in analgesic response to 2 Hz and 100 Hz stimulation, we studied and compared the gene expression profiles in the DH in HR versus NR rats
Summary
Acupuncture has been used in China and other Asian countries for more than 2500 years and in western countries for decades [1]. Because there were different criteria for definition of the HR and NR, the percentage for HR and NR in previous reports were 30.0%,61.1% and 30.0%,46.2%, respectively [6,8,9,10,11,12]. This phenomenon leaves an obstacle to clinical pain management by EA treatment, especially to the application of acupuncture compound anesthesia in clinical surgical operation. The molecular mechanism accounting for this difference remains obscure
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