"Influence of ""Warming yang and Nourishing qi"" acupuncture treatment in serum IL-12 and IL-18 expression levels in experimental autoimmune myasthenia gravis rats and its mechanism" / 中国免疫学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To observe the influence of the “Warming yang and Nourishing qi” acupuncture treatment in the serum interleukin-12 (IL-12) and interleukin-18 (IL-18) expression levels,in the rats with experimental autoimmune myasthenis gravis (EAMG) and to analyze the mechanism of acupuncture treatment to myasthenis gravis (MG).Methods: AchRα1 129-145 peptide fragments were used to immune the female Lewis rats to establish EAMG rat models.30 successful EAMG model rats were randomly selected and divided into acupuncture treatment group ,drug control group and model control group ( n=10 );the unmodelled 10 rats purchased at the same period were used as blank control group.The rats in acupuncture treatment group were treated by “Warming yang and Nourishing qi” acupuncture treatment,30 min/time,once a day,7 d for a period,1 d rest between two periods,two periods of continuous treatment.The rats in drug control group were treated by the pyridostigmine lavaged treatment , 18.5 mg/( kg · d ) , continuous treatment of 15 d.The rats in the other two groups had no any special treatment.After treatment,the blood samples from the vein of tail root of the rats in 4 groups were collected ,and the serum expression levels of IL-12 and IL-18 were detected with ELISA method.Results:After treatment,compared with model control group ,acupuncture treatment and drug control group the serum IL-12 and IL-18 expression level of the EAMG rats were significantly decreased ( P0.05 ).Conclusion:“Warming yang and Nourishing qi” acupuncture treatment can reduce the serum IL-12 and IL-18 expression levels of EAMG rats to treat MG ,and the effect of treatment was similar to pyridostigmine.