Acute Gouty Arthritis Rats Research Articles

Urinary Study on the Biochemical Effect of Acupuncture on Monosodium Urate Crystals-Induced Acute Gouty Arthritis in Rats using 600MHz 1H NMR

Acupuncture may potentially be an alternative therapy for acute gouty arthritis, a common inflammation model with multiple pathogenic mechanisms. In order to investigate the biological process of acute gouty arthritis and the effect of acupuncture, 1 H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabonomics has been applied to acquire urine metabolom data. Acute gouty arthritis model rats were induced by monosodium urate (MSU) crystals. The acupuncture on ST-36 (Zusanli) and SP-6 (Sanyinjiao) acupoints was applied for nine consecutive days. Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Partial Least Squares (PLS) have been used to compare the time course urine metabolic perturbations. The prominent changes in endogenous urinary metabolites in acute gouty arthritis rats comprised increased levels of citrate and succinate, and decrease of allantoin, lactate, formate, trimethyl-N-oxide (TMAO) and taurine on the 3 rd day after MSU injection; and on day 9, Citrate, succinate, and allantoin began to recover to the original level, whereas formate, taurine, TMAO and lactate further decreased, which showed their incompletely recovery. Acupuncture treatment appears to reverse the levels of most metabolites affected by acute gouty arthritis, however, with significant increase levels of acetate, acetoacetate, allantoin, creatine/creatinine, phenylacetylglycine (PAG), taurine and TMAO on day 3; all these metabolites began to recover to the original level on day 9 except for creatine/creatinine, which slightly increased, demonstrating the therapeutic effects of acupuncture on acute gouty arthritis. Our work shows the potential of an NMR-based metabonomic approach in the study of biological effects of acupuncture on acute gouty arthritis

An Improved Acute Gouty Arthritis Rat Model and Therapeutic Effect of Rhizoma Dioscoreae Nipponicae on Acute Gouty Arthritis Based on the Protein-Chip Methods

Rhizoma Dioscoreae nipponicae (RDN) is an herbal medicine. In the theories of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the function of RDN is to expel wind and remove dampness. Inflammatory mechanisms play an important role in the pathological process and prognosis of acute gouty arthritis (AGA). The aim of this study was to determine the specially expressed proteins through testing the proteins of the synovium in rats with AGA. The animal model of AGA was set up by Monosodium urate crystal (MSU) combined with hypoxanthine (HX), which was ameliorated in our previous experiment. Blood samples for measurement of serum uric acid were collected prior to sacrifice. Outcomes were assessed (two days after injection) by histological stain and protein quantitation. Three chips of RayBio® Human Label-based Antibody Array I were applied to detect 90 proteins in the synovium tissue of AGA rats. 14 differently expressed proteins were found in the synovium of AGA rats, and nine of them were first found in this model. There were seven up-regulated and seven down-regulated proteins, both TRAIL and Neuropilin-2 could be identified as key contributors to the pathomechanism of AGA.

Effect of Acupuncture on Rats with Acute Gouty Arthritis Inflammation: A Metabonomic Method for Profiling of Both Urine and Plasma Metabolic Perturbation

Acute gouty arthritis is a common inflammation model with multiple pathogenic mechanisms seen in clinical practice, for which acupuncture may potentially be an alternative therapy. To investigate the effect of acupuncture on acute gouty arthritis and search for its mechanism, a metabonomic method was developed in this investigation. Acute gouty arthritis model rats were induced by monosodium urate (MSU) crystals. The urine and plasma samples were collected at several time points and the endogenous metabolites were analyzed by an ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with a mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS). Data were analyzed using principal components analysis (PCA) and partial least squares (PLS) analysis to compare metabolic profiles of MSU crystal-induced acute gouty arthritis rats with MSU crystal-induced acute gouty arthritis, treated with acupuncture rats. The results showed that acupuncture could restore the metabolite network that disturbed by MSU administration. Our study indicates that UPLC-MS-based metabonomics can be used as a potential tool for the investigation of biological effect of acupuncture on acute gouty arthritis.