Effect of Electroacupuncture on Content of hs-CRP and IL-6 in ApoE^-/- Mouse Plasma and Expression of TNF-α in Arotic Sinus Plaques

OBJECTIVE To observe the effect of electroacupuncture on the content of high sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) and the expression of tumor necrosis factor-a (TNF-α) in aortic sinus plaques in ApoE^-/- mice plasma. METHODS 30 successfully-modeled ApoE^-/- mice were randomly divided into three groups as model group， drug-control (DC) group and electro-acupuncture (EA) group， with 10 mice in each group. EA group was treated with acupuncture in Shenmen， Neiguan， Housanli and Sanyinjiao， connecting with the Hans electroacupuncture device. Meanwhile， the gavage administration of 40mg/kg.d simvastatin was adopted in DC group. The content of hs-CRP and IL-6 in mouse plasma was detected by ELISA and the expression of TNF-α was by immunohistochemistry (IHC). RESULTS Compared with model-group， the content of hs-CRP and IL-6 in EA group obviously decreased (P<0.01); IHC showed that there was plenty of TNF-α of model group distributed on fibrous cap and a large scale of necrotic core and cholesterol crystals was found in aortic sinus plaques; while in EA group， there was little TNF-α on fibrous cap without significant necrotic core and cholesterol crystals. CONCLUSION Electroacupuncture treatment can protect vessel endothelium and inhibit the development of plaques by improving the mice body's inflammatory response state， indicating that anti-inflammatory effect may be one of the mechanisms of AS treatment with electroacupuncture.