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.
Highlights
Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is a major cause of morbidity
This analysis is a visual confirmation that electro-acupuncture pretreatment regulates more genes that were pathologically changed in the ischemia reperfusion (I/R) injury hearts compared with non-acupoint pretreatment (NA) pretreatment
Serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatine kinase (CK) and creatine kinase Mb (CK-Mb) were analyzed by immune inhibition, and plasma cardiac troponin T (cTnT) was detected with electrochemiluminescence immune-assay method at the Medical Laboratory of Jiangsu Province Hospital (Nanjing, China)
Summary
Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is a major cause of morbidity. Primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI), as the most effective therapy for reducing acute myocardial injury, can preserve cardiac function and improve clinical outcomes due to its timely and effective reperfusion. The underlying molecular mechanisms by which Neiguan could be protective to myocardial I/R injury remain to be explored. Many studies have looked at the systemic effects of acupuncture on myocardial I/R injury, no research has been conducted on the response to electro-acupuncture pretreatment at the transcriptomic level of functional genes [5]. The potential protective effects of electro-acupuncture at the PC6 Neiguan acupoint were investigated on rat myocardial I/R injury. We employed RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) to generate gene expression profiles for the rat hearts subjected to myocardial I/R injury with or without electro-acupuncture treatment at the PC6. Our study provided useful insights for understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying I/R, and the protective effects of pretreatment with electro-acupuncture at PC6 or non-acupoint on myocardial I/R injury by dramatically altering gene expression
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