艾灸对老年大鼠海马线粒体膜电位、神经元凋亡的影响

目的:通过测定老年大鼠海马线粒体膜电位、神经元凋亡的数量,探讨线粒体、细胞凋亡在衰老中的作用以及艾灸的延缓衰老作用。方法:依月龄将Wistar大鼠分为青年组、老年组、老年艾灸组,艾灸“百会”“肾俞”穴40 d后,用碘化丙啶(PI)和罗丹明123(Rhodamine-123)荧光染料染色30 min,通过流式细胞仪测定细胞内PI和Rhodamine-123的荧光强度,分析细胞线粒体膜电位、神经元凋亡的变化。结果:老年组海马线粒体膜电位、神经元凋亡阳性百分比均较青年组、艾灸组显著增高(P<0.01),青年组与艾灸组间无显著性差异(P>0.05)。结论:艾灸具有延缓衰老的作用,可以抑制线粒体膜电位的改变,减少神经元凋亡。

Effect of Moxibustion on Mitochondrial Membrane Potentials and Neuronal Apoptosis in Aged Rats

Objective: To observe changes of mitochondrial membrane potential and neuronal apoptosis and the effect of moxibustion on them in aged rats.Methods: According to the age(months),45 Wistar rats were evenly divided into young(2-3 m) group,aged(15 m) group and moxibustion(rats with age of 15 m) group.Moxibustion was applied to "Baihui"(GV 20) and "Shenshu"(BL 23) for 8 min every acupoint,once daily,40 sessions altogether.After the treatment,the rats were killed rapidly by decapitation for collecting hippocampus tissue and processing into homogenate and cell suspension(10~7 cells/mL).The cell suspension(100 μL/tube) was added separately with proidium iodide and rhodamine-123(dyes),followed by detecting the number of apoptosis and mitochondrial membrane potentials with a flow cytometer.Results: The apoptosis rates of young rat group,aged rat group and moxibustion group were 5.77±0.08,24.17±5.84,and 9.42±1.76 separately, while their percents of membrane potentials were 15.71±2.56,37.99±6.17 and 20.11±3.92 respectively.The values of these two indexes of aged rat group were significantly higher than those of young rat group and moxibustion group(P<0.01),while no significant differences were found between moxibustion group and young rat group in these two indexes(P>0.05),showing that moxibustion could significantly lower hippocampal apoptosis and membrane potentials.Conclusion: Moxibustion can check changes of mitochondrial membrane potentials and reduce the number of neuronal apoptosis of hippocampus,that may be responsible for the efficacy of moxibustion in delaying aging.