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Acupuncture is one of the most promising modalities in complimentary medicine. However, the underlying mechanisms are not well understood yet. We found that in TRPV2 knockout male mice, acupuncture-induced analgesia was suppressed with a decreased activation of mast cells in the acupoints stimulated. The mast cell stabilizer sodium cromolyn could suppress the release of adenosine in the acupoints on male rats. A direct injection of adenosine A1 receptor agonist or histamine H1 receptor agonist increased β-endorphin in the cerebral-spinal fluid in the acute adjuvant arthritis male rats and thus replicated the analgesic effect of acupuncture. These observations suggest that the mast cell is the central structure of acupoints and is activated by acupuncture through TRPV2 channels. The mast cell transduces the mechanical stimuli to acupuncture signal by activating either H1 or A1 receptors, therefore triggering the acupuncture effect in the subject. These findings might open new frontiers for acupuncture research.

The present study aimed at observing the profile of metabolites in sensitized acupoints induced by myocardial ischemia (MI) and the effect of acupuncture intervention on the changes of the metabolites so as to explore the material basis of acupoint sensitization.A total of 20 New Zealand rabbits were randomly and equally divided into a control group and a model group. The MI model was established by occlusion of the anterior descending branch of the left coronary artery with a controllable air balloon inflation method for 5 min/time, twice a day (4-hours' interval) for continuous 5 days (the first stage of MI). After one day's rest, another 5 days' occlusion was conducted again (the second stage of MI) in the same way. The rabbits of the control group were treated with the same procedures but without occlusion. Subcutaneous microdialysis fluid samples were collected from "Neiguan" (PC 6), "Shenmen" (HT 7), "Xinshu" (BL 15), and "Taixi" (KI 3) regions on day 8(after recovery from operation), 14 (the first stage of MI), and 20 (the second stage of MI), as well as collected from PC 6 region during and post-acupuncture stimulation of PC 6, respectively. Manual acupuncture stimulation was applied to the right PC 6 for 30 min. Partial least squares -linear discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) was used to identify different metabolism patterns of the microdialysis fluid sample between groups and at different time-points in the same one group, and the distinct metabolites as the potential markers between groups were weighted via the values of variable importance in the projection (VIP) in combination with t-test analysis. An area under the curve (AUC)1.0 indicated a test exhibiting good discrimination between groups.Six metabolites identified to be significantly different between the control and model groups were L-glutamic acid, phenylalanine and 3-hydroxyisobutyric acid (which were significantly increased relevant to the control group), and L-histidine, octadecanedioic acid and 9-keto palmitic acid (significantly decreased relevant to the control group) in the microdialysate of PC 6, HT 7 and BL 15 regions. In the microdialysate of PC 6, 4 metabolites including L-glutamic acid, octadecanedioic acid and 8-isohydroxy PGF 2 α (significantly increased), as well as L-histidine (markedly decreased) were identified to be considerably different between the model and control groups. After acupuncture for 30 min, the AUC level of L-glutamic acid was further significantly increased (L-glutamic acid, phenylalanine, 3-hydroxyisobutyric acid, L-histidine, octadecanedioic acid and 9-keto palmitic acid from PC 6, HT 7 and BL 15 regions may be used as the material biomarker for MI-induced sensitization of these acupoints. Manual acupuncture intervention of PC 6 induces a significant change of L-histidine and L-glutamic acid in the local subcutaneous tissues.

In this paper, a new kind of absorber with ultra-wideband microwave absorption is designed, which is combined with graphene and random metasurface. As a result, when the sheet resistance of graphene varies from $350 \Omega / \square $ to $700 \Omega / \square $, the absorption above 80% ranging from 5 to 31GHz (144% relative bandwidth) is obtained.

To develop an animal model suitable for the study of acupoint sensitization in myocardial ischemia(MI) animals by observing changes of the mechanical withdrawal threshold (pain threshold, PT).Twenty New Zea-land rabbits were randomly divided into control and model groups (The controllable MI model was successful due to a marked elevation of ECG ST Ⅱ after inflation of the implanted balloon and a distinct recovery after balloon deflation (MI may induce a reduction of PT of some related acupoints in MI rabbits, and the controllable MI model of the present study is helpful to the study of acupoint sensitization phenomenon after occurrence of visceral diseases.

Five new mononuclear complexes with 2-(5-methyl-1H-pyrazol-3-yl)pyridine (L) have been synthesized, namely [ZnLCl2] (1), [NiL2(H2O)2)]Cl2·0.5N2H4 (2), [MnL2]·3H2O (3), [CdL2(NO3)2] (4) and [MnL2(Pa)2] (5, Pa = m-phthalic acid). All these compounds were characterized by elemental analysis, IR and UV–Vis spectroscopy, and X-ray single crystal diffraction. The crystal structures reveal that compounds 2, 3 and 5 afford six-coordinated octahedral spheres, whilst compound 1 displays a four-coordinated tetrahedral core and compound 4 forms an eight-coordinated geometry. Furthermore, the 3D supramolecular networks, formed through plentiful H-bonds and weak molecular interactions, have been analyzed. The photoluminescent properties of the ligand L, together with compounds 1 and 4, were also studied in methanol solution at room temperature.