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Hypertension is a global health problem. It has been reported that acupuncture at Taichong acupoints (LR3) decreases high blood pressure in spontaneously hypertensive rats. A transcriptome analysis can profile gene expression and its relationship with acupuncture. In this study, rats were treated with 2 weeks of acupuncture followed by regular recording of blood pressure (BP). The mRNA changes in the rostral ventrolateral medulla (RVLM) were evaluated to uncover the genetic mechanisms of acupuncture by using a whole transcript array (Affymetrix Rat Gene 1.0 ST array). BP measurements showed that acupuncture significantly decreased systolic blood pressure (SBP), mean arterial pressure (MAP), and heart rate (HR). In the bioinformatics results, 2371 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified, where 83 DEGs were overlapped among Wistar-Kyoto rats (WKYs), spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs), and SHRs + acupuncture rats (SHRs+Acu). Gene ontology (GO) and pathway analysis revealed that 279 GO terms and 20 pathways with significant differences were related to oxidative stress, inflammation, and vascular endothelial function. In addition, coexpressed DEGs networks indicated that Cd4 and Il-33 might mediate the cascade of inflammation and oxidative stress responses, which could serve as a potential target of acupuncture treatment. In conclusion, our study demonstrated that acupuncture is a promising therapy for treating hypertension and could regulate multiple biological processes mainly involving oxidative stress, inflammation, and vascular endothelial function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although, acupoint specificity is regarded as the core of scientific issues in electroacupuncture (EA), the difference of EA on treating functional dyspepsia (FD) at different acupoints is unclear. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the different therapeutic effects of EA at lower extremity or abdominal acupoints on the mucosal integrity and lower-inflammatory response in FD. The intragastric administration of iodoacetamide (IA) was performed in 48 rats to establish the FD model. These rats were randomly divided into the control group, the model group and the six EA groups receiving stimulation at the lower extremity (ST36, ST37, and ST39) or abdominal acupoints (ST25, CV4, and CV12) separately. The open-field test (OFT) was measured after 8 weeks of IA, and gastric emptying was evaluated after 10 days of the EA treatment. The local inflammation markers of CD45, eosinophil major basic protein (EMBP), and the tight junction proteins ZO1 and Claudin3 were assessed by immunofluorescence in all groups. Western blot analysis showed that the EMBP and Occludin1 levels in the duodenal. EA at lower extremity acupoint ST36 could improve the gastric emptying. EA at lower extremity acupoints reduced the immunoreactivity of EMBP, but the CD45 was reregulated by the ST37 and ST39 acupoints. The lower extremity acupoints also ameliorated FD-tight junction protein in the expression of Claudin3 and ZO1. However, only the ST36 suppressed the expression of EMBP and recovered the expression of Occludin1. Similarly, the effect of EA at abdominal acupoints was not obvious either in facilitating gastric motility or in improving inflammatory and mucosal injury. EA at lower extremity and abdominal acupoints with the same stimulation parameters had different therapeutic effects in gastric emptying, intestinal mucosal integrity, and inflammation response, thus proving the specificity of acupoints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]