ZHANG Yamin, SUN Hua, XU Hong, CHEN Suhui, SI Yingkui

(Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing 100730)

Abstract：Objective：To  observe  the  expression  levels  of  Bcl-2  and  Bax  after  treating  acute  cerebral infarction  of  rats  with  eletro-acupuncture  so  as  to  investigate  the  underlying  mechanism  of  electroacupuncture on ischemic stroke from the angle of apoptosis. Methods: Healthy male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into a sham operation (S) group, a model(M)groups，an electro-acupuncture (EA) groups, and then were divided into 24h and 72h reperfusion subgroups. The S groups and the M groups were binded by a bag for 20min as the rats in EA groups. The rats in M groups and the EA groups were made middle  carotid  artery  occlusion/reperfusion  model.  The  rats  in  EA  groups  were  treated  with  electroacupuncture treatment every day, and GV20 and left ST36 were selected. The protain levels of Bcl-2 and Bax in brain were evaluated by western blot and the mRNA levels of Bcl-2 and Bax in brain were evaluated by Real-time PCR. Results: Compared with the M groups, the protein and mRNA levels of Bcl-2 in the EA groups  significantly  increased  at  the  same  time  point(P<0.05);  and  Bax  expression  in  EA groups  were significantly lower than in M groups at the same time point. Conclusions: Electro-acupuncture at GV20and ST36 increased the protein and mRNA levels of Bcl-2, and decreased the protein and mRNA expression level of Bax in rat model of MCAO. Electro-acupuncture therapy had a protective effect against the focal CIRI in rats probably by regulating the expression of Bcl-2 and Bax in the apoptosis process.

Key  words:  Integrated  Chinese  and  Western  Medicine,  Electro-acupuncture,  Middle  Cerebral  Artery Occlusion, Cerebral Ischemia Reperfusion Injury, Apoptosis