[Effects of acupoint-embedding of medicinal thread and electroacupuncture on contents of TNF-alpha and IL-6 of hippocampus tissue in rats with focal cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury].
OBJECTIVE
To observe the effects of acupoint-embedding (AE) of collagen plus Tetramethylpyrazine and electroacupuncture (EA) on the contents of TNF-alpha and IL-6 in hippocampus tissue in rats with focal cerebral ischemia-reperfusion (CI-R) injury.


METHODS
A total of 120 SD rats were randomly divided into normal control (n=8), sham operation (n=24), model (CI-R, n=24), EA (n=24) and AE (n=24) groups, and the later 4 groups were further divided into 24 h, 72 h and 120 h subgroups (time-points) separately, with 8 cases in each. CI-R model was established by middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) and reperfusion. For animals of AE group, the medicinal thread consisting of collagen and Tetramethylpyrazine was implanted into "Dazhui" (GV14) and bilateral "Neiguan" (PC6), once daily. For rats of EA group, EA (120 cycles/min, 1 mA) was applied to GV14 and PC6 for 30 min, once daily. The contents of TNF-alpha and IL-6 in the hippocampus were detected by using radio-immunoassay after processing the tissue samples (homogenate, centrifuge).


RESULTS
The contents of TNF-alpha and IL-6 in hippocampus tissue of model group at 24 h, 72 h and 120 h time-points were significantly higher than those of normal control and sham operation groups (P<0.05), while after EA and AE, the contents of TNF-alpha at the 3 time-points decreased significantly (P<0.05), and IL-6 contents at the same 3 time-points increased further and significantly (P<0.05). Comparison between EA and AE groups showed that the contents of TNF-alpha of the later group at 72 h and 120 h were significantly lower than those of EA group (P<0.05), while IL-6 contents of AE group were significantly higher than those of EA group at the same time-points (P<0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
Both EA and AE of collagen and Tetramethylpyrazine can evidently lower TNF-alpha content and significantly raise IL-6 level in hippocampus in rats with cerebral ischemia/reperfusion injury and the effect of AE is significantly superior to that of EA, which may contribute to their protective effects on ischemic cerebral neurons.
Hubei College of Chinese Medicine, Wuhan 430061, China. xiyu1618@sina.com
Li-Hong
LH
Kong
Guo-Jie
GJ
Sun
Juan-Juan
JJ
Mao
Fu-Rong
FR
Su
Shan
S
Gao
D015669:Acupuncture Points; D000818:Animals; D002545:Brain Ischemia / Q000628:therapy*; D003094:Collagen / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D015671:Electroacupuncture; D005260:Female; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000737:chemistry*; D015850:Interleukin-6 / Q000032:analysis*; D008297:Male; D011719:Pyrazines / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D015427:Reperfusion Injury / Q000628:therapy*; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / Q000032:analysis*
D015850:Interleukin-6; D011719:Pyrazines; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha; D003094:Collagen; C017953:tetramethylpyrazine