Molecular Mechanism of Acupuncture

针灸的分子机制

• 批准号: 6870758
• 负责人: LILI FENG
• 金额: $ 18.75万
• 依托单位: BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-02-15 至 2007-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6870758
• 关键词: RNase protection assay; acupuncture /acupressure; alternative medicine; analgesia; biological signal transduction; blood tests; cell adhesion molecules; chemokine; cholinergic receptors; cytochrome P450; cytokine; electrostimulus; enzyme linked immunosorbent assay; gene expression; genetic regulation; glomerulonephritis; immunocytochemistry; immunoprecipitation; inflammation; intermolecular interaction; laboratory rat; molecular biology; nonhuman therapy evaluation; urinalysis; vasodilation; western blottings

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Meridian medicine, such as acupuncture, acupressure, and Qigong, have been commonly used to treat a variety of diseases and disorders; however, the potency of these alternative methods has not been widely accepted by mainstream due to a lack of scientific evidence. Although substantial evidences have been accumulated that acupuncture has prominent analgesic effect; there is no systemic research regarding signaling pathways mediated by acupuncture in treating diseases. Recently, we have found that acupuncture treatment lead to significant anti-inflammatory as well as vasodilatory modulation in animal models. We hypothesize that acupuncture analgesia might function partially by its direct and/or indirect inhibition of inflammation, since pain is frequently associated with inflammation and acupuncture has been successfully used to treat a number of human inflammatory diseases. We have also found that cholinergic pathway may play an important role in acupuncture-mediated anti-inflammatory effects and other therapeutic benefits in the animal model as demonstrated by microarray using a rat oligo set containing 6,000 probes. The purposes of this proposal are 1), to further determine cellular and molecular mechanisms by which acupuncture attenuates inflammation in vivo in rats; and 2), to identify the signaling pathways by which acupuncture mediates anti-inflammatory and vasodilatory effects in the animal model. This study represents an unexplored area of research and would provide important insight into how acupuncture technology can be linked to modern concept of gene regulation in biological systems and may further offer a feasible strategy to increase understanding the molecular biology of alternative medicine in meridian therapies. We believe that our studies may open new era towards molecular understanding of acupuncture treatment in pain, inflammation, as well as a variety of vascular diseases in humans.

描述（申请人提供）：经络医学，如针灸、穴位按摩和气功，已被普遍用于治疗多种疾病和病症；然而，由于缺乏科学证据，这些替代方法的效力尚未被主流广泛接受。尽管已有大量证据表明针灸具有显着的镇痛作用；目前还没有关于针灸治疗疾病所介导的信号通路的系统研究。 最近，我们发现针灸治疗在动物模型中具有显着的抗炎和血管舒张调节作用。我们假设针灸镇痛可能部分通过其直接和/或间接抑制炎症来发挥作用，因为疼痛经常与炎症相关，并且针灸已成功用于治疗许多人类炎症性疾病。我们还发现，胆碱能通路可能在动物模型中针灸介导的抗炎作用和其他治疗益处中发挥重要作用，这一点通过使用包含 6,000 个探针的大鼠寡核苷酸组的微阵列来证明。该提案的目的是1）进一步确定针灸减轻大鼠体内炎症的细胞和分子机制； 2）确定针灸在动物模型中介导抗炎和血管舒张作用的信号通路。这项研究代表了一个尚未探索的研究领域，将为针灸技术如何与生物系统中基因调控的现代概念联系起来提供重要的见解，并可能进一步提供一种可行的策略，以增进对经络疗法中替代医学分子生物学的理解。我们相信，我们的研究可能会为针灸治疗人类疼痛、炎症以及各种血管疾病的分子理解开辟新纪元。