title: Electroacupuncture in the repair of spinal cord injury: inhibiting the Notch signaling pathway and promoting neural stem cell proliferation.
abstract: Electroacupuncture for the treatment of spinal cord injury has a good clinical curative effect, but the underlying mechanism is unclear. In our experiments, the spinal cord of adult Sprague-Dawley rats was clamped for 60 seconds. Dazhui (GV14) and Mingmen (GV4) acupoints of rats were subjected to electroacupuncture. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay revealed that the expression of serum inflammatory factors was apparently downregulated in rat models of spinal cord injury after electroacupuncture. Hematoxylin-eosin staining and immunohistochemistry results demonstrated that electroacupuncture contributed to the proliferation of neural stem cells in rat injured spinal cord, and suppressed their differentiation into astrocytes. Real-time quantitative PCR and western blot assays showed that electroacupuncture inhibited activation of the Notch signaling pathway induced by spinal cord injury. These findings indicate that electroacupuncture repaired the injured spinal cord by suppressing the Notch signaling pathway and promoting the proliferation of endogenous neural stem cells.
authors: Second Department of Neurosurgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.
authors: Xin
authors: X
authors: Geng
authors: Second Department of Neurosurgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.
authors: Tao
authors: T
authors: Sun
authors: Second Department of Neurosurgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.
authors: Jing-Hui
authors: JH
authors: Li
authors: Second Department of Neurosurgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.
authors: Ning
authors: N
authors: Zhao
authors: Second Department of Neurosurgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.
authors: Yong
authors: Y
authors: Wang
authors: Second Department of Neurosurgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.
authors: Hua-Lin
authors: HL
authors: Yu
keywords: astrocytes; differentiation; electroacupuncture therapy; inflammation; nerve regeneration; neural regeneration; neural stem cells; notch signaling pathway; proliferation; real-time quantitative PCR; spinal cord; survival curve; western blot assay