Medicinal Chemistry

GV20 Penetrating GB7 on the Expression of Wnt1 in Brain Tissue of Rats with Intracerebral Hemorrhage

Abstract

Wei Wu, Xiaohong Dai, Wei Zou, Xueping Yu, Wei Teng, Xiaowei Sun, Weiwei Yu, Huihui Ma, Qiuxin Chen, Peng Zhang, Tingting Yu and Peng Liu

Background: Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is a life-threatening disease that confuses us for centuries. Acupuncture as a kind of Chinese traditional treatment has been empirically established and widely used in clinics in China, especially for stroke victims. Studies proved that GV20 penetrating GB7, a kind of needling manipulation, with which a needle is inserted into GV20 and then to GB7 under the scalp, is especially effective on the treatment of this disease. Wingless-type1 (Wnt1) is a key factor of Wnt/β-catenin signal pathway, which could promote regeneration and remodeling of neural function after ICH by affecting proliferation and differentiation of the neural stem cells (NSCs). The study on the expression of Wnt1 induced by GV20 penetrating GB7 may give out the theoretical principle of the treatment.
Objective: The goal of this work is to observe the effect of GV20 penetrating GB7 needling on the protein/ mRNA expression of Wnt1 in brain tissue of ICH rats.
Methods: In this experiment, we focused on observing the protein/mRNA expression level of Wnt1 by Western blot and real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR (RTFQ PCR) in the rats with ICH, which were treated by Dickkopfrelated protein 1 (DKK1), acupuncture or no intervention, comparing with the healthy rats without any treatment at fixed time points.
Results: This study revealed that the expression of Wnt1 had the similar trend in all groups at each time point of corresponding treatment, which began to increase from the third day (3d), reached the peak on the seventh day (7d) then decreased gradually. The acupuncture treatment group showed a higher level of expression.
Conclusion: The results show that GV20 penetrating GB7 has advantage on promoting the protein/mRNA expression of Wnt1, activates the intracellular Wnt pathway, and regulates the transcription of downstream target genes, affecting proliferation and differentiation of the neural stem cells (NSCs), thereby initiates endogenous repair mechanisms of the organism itself. This study provides a powerful scientific basis for acupuncture treatment on ICH.