MOE Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China; Bioinspired Engineering and Biomechanics Center (BEBC), Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China; Department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Shaanxi Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Xi'an 710003, PR China.
Bioinspired Engineering and Biomechanics Center (BEBC), Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China; Department of Chinese Materia Medica and Natural Medicines, School of Pharmacy, Air Force Medical University, Xi'an 710032, PR China.
Life Sci. 2018 Oct 15;211:51-62. doi: 10.1016/j.lfs.2018.09.010. Epub 2018 Sep 5.
Prevention and treatment of myocardial ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury has for many years been a hot topic in treating ischemic heart disease. As one of the most well-known methods of complementary and alternative medicine, acupuncture has attracted increasing interest in preventing myocardial I/R injury due to its remarkable effectiveness and minimal side effect. However, traditional acupuncture approaches are limited by cumbersome execution, high labor costs and inevitable pain caused by frequent stimulation. Therefore, in this work, we aimed to develop a novel acupoint gel embedding approach and investigated its role in protecting against myocardial I/R injury in rats.
Gels were embedded at bilateral Neiguan (PC6) points of rats and their protective effects against myocardial I/R injury evaluated in terms of changes in histomorphology, myocardial enzymology, antioxidant capacity, anti-inflammatory response, and anti-apoptosis of cells.
We found that the approach of acupoint gel embedding could significantly reduce myocardial infarcted size, repair pathological changes, mitigate oxidative stress damage and inflammatory response, as well as inhibit apoptosis of cardiomyocytes. Such cardioprotective effects were found to be associated with Notch-1/Jagged-1 signaling pathway.
The proposed approach of acupoint gel embedding has advantages in continuous acupoint stimulation, dosing controls, and no side effects in the course of treatment, as well as in reducing the pain caused by frequent acupuncture. It can form an alternative therapy to not only protect against myocardial I/R injury but also hold great potential in treating other diseases in the future.
心肌缺血再灌注（I/R）损伤的预防和治疗多年来一直是治疗缺血性心脏病的热门话题。作为最著名的补充和替代医学方法之一，由于其显著的疗效和最小的副作用，针灸在预防心肌 I/R 损伤方面引起了越来越多的关注。然而，传统的针灸方法受到执行繁琐、劳动力成本高以及频繁刺激引起的不可避免的疼痛的限制。因此，在这项工作中，我们旨在开发一种新的穴位凝胶嵌入方法，并研究其在保护大鼠心肌 I/R 损伤中的作用。
将凝胶嵌入大鼠双侧内关（PC6）点，并根据组织形态学、心肌酶学、抗氧化能力、抗炎反应和细胞凋亡的变化来评估其对心肌 I/R 损伤的保护作用。
我们发现穴位凝胶嵌入方法可显著减少心肌梗死面积，修复病理变化，减轻氧化应激损伤和炎症反应，并抑制心肌细胞凋亡。这种心脏保护作用与 Notch-1/Jagged-1 信号通路有关。
所提出的穴位凝胶嵌入方法具有连续穴位刺激、剂量控制和治疗过程中无副作用的优点，并且可以减少频繁针灸引起的疼痛。它不仅可以作为预防心肌 I/R 损伤的替代疗法，而且在未来治疗其他疾病方面也具有很大的潜力。
