Electroacupuncture-induced cannabinoid receptor expression in repair of abducens nerve.

Objective

Through the development of beagle abducens nerve injury model, taking electroacupuncture as the core and microglia as the starting point, the author investigated whether electroacupuncture can promote the repair of injured abducens nerve by cannabinoid receptor-mediated regulation of microglia activation.

Methods

Healthy beagle dogs were randomly divided into five groups: sham operation group (A), injury group (B), electroacupuncture pretreatment group (C), antagonist group (D) and solvent group (E). After stimulation with electroacupuncture, the expression of cannabinoid 1 receptor (CB1R) and cannabinoid 2 receptor (CB2R) in A, B and C microglia cells was detected by Western Bolt analysis, and further the expression of CB2R in five groups was further analyzed by immunofluorescence, thereby statistical differences were analyzed.

Results

Among group A, group B and group C, Western Blot analysis showed that there were no significant changes in the expression of CB1R protein after electroacupuncture [F (2, 12)=1.75, p = 0.215]. After electroacupuncture preconditioning for 15 min for 2 weeks, group C was compared with group A and group B, which showed CB2 was affected. The expression of CB2R protein was significantly increased among groups A, B and C [F (2, 12)=5189.57, p < 0.001], but there was no significant difference in the expression of CB2R protein between group A and group B (p > 0.05). The results of immunofluorescence showed that Arginse/CD11b was significantly increased in group C comparing to group A (*p < 0.001), while there was a significant increase in group E comparing to group A about Arginse/CD11b [F (4, 20)=4345.44, p < 0.001].

Conclusions

The CB2R in the cannabinoid receptor is mainly involved in the electro-acupuncture-induced neuroprotection. Electroacupuncture can promote the repair of injured abducens nerve by CB2R-mediated activation of microglia.