Genome‐Wide Regulation of Electroacupuncture and Treadmill Exercise on Diet‐Induced Obese Rats

Abstract

Acupuncture has been widely used for obesity treatment, but its mechanism is still unclear. To investigate the molecular mechanisms, we applied electroacupuncture (EA) at the Zusanli (ST36) acupoint and treadmill exercise (TE) in a diet-induced obese (DIO) rat model and used RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) to identify molecular consequences. Forty Sprague-Dawley male rats were selected and randomly divided into five groups: control (C), DIO model (M), EA, TE, and EA + TE groups. According to the results, acupuncture reduced body weight and the ratio of retroperitoneal white adipose tissue (retro-WAT) to body weight. Total RNA was extracted from the retro-WAT from five groups for RNA-seq. Differentially expressed genes (DEG) analysis showed that there were obvious differences among the four comparisons of C vs. M, M vs. EA, M vs. TE, and M vs. EA + TE, followed by 1383, 913, 3324, and 2794 DE genes. Gene ontology (GO) term enrichment analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analysis were performed to further classify the DEGs. Several GO terms were commonly significantly enriched in both M vs. TE and M vs. EA, such as myofibril and muscle contraction. In addition, some pathways were regulated by EA and TE, such as the peroxisome proliferator activated receptor signaling pathway and calcium signaling pathway. This study is the first to compare and analyze the differences in gene expression profiles in the retro-WAT of rats in different groups, which provide a clue for further investigation into the molecular mechanisms of obesity treatment by EA and TE.

Activation of POMC neurons to adiponectin participating in EA-mediated improvement of high-fat diet IR mice

“… Ji et al (2013) concluded that EA ST36 produces an up-regulation of anorexigenic factor POMC production in the NTS/HN, which inhibited food intake and reduced body weight. Meanwhile, Zhang Y. et al (2020) and Han et al (2021) also found the similarly result, which suggest that single point stimulation at ST36 can reduce body weight. In this experiment, it was observed that the body weight of the HFD + EA group only a decreased compared with the HFD group during EA, suggesting that a single EA treatment could not restore the body weight of model mice to a normal level.…”

Grain-Sized Moxibustion Heightens the AntiTumor Effect of Cyclophosphamide in Hepa1-6 Bearing Mice

“…Grain-sized moxibustion, a characteristic external therapy, can directly stimulate specific acupoints to treat diseases through the photothermal stimulation of specific acupoints in a short period of time. It plays the roles of dredging the meridians, regulating qi and blood, strengthening the body, and eliminating the pathogens [ 9 , 10 ]. In terms of adjuvant chemotherapy in the treatment of malignant tumors, reports on moxibustion can be traced back to the 1970s.…”