OBJECTIVETo explore the mechanism of the eye-acupuncture for treatment of acute cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury.

METHODSThirty-two healthy SD rats were randomly divided into a normal group, a sham operation group, a model group and an eye-acupuncture group, 8 rats in each group. The rat model of cerebral ischemia-reperfusion was established with thread occlusion method in the model group and the eye-acupuncture group. The eye-acupuncture group was treated by eye-acupuncture at "liver region", "upper energizer area", "lower energizer area" and "kidney region" for 20 min immediately after reperfusion and at 30 min before sampling. No treatment was done in the normal group and the sham operation group, and no thread occlusion was performed in the sham operation group. The Neurologic impairment was scored and the methods of immunohistochemistry staining, western-blotting and real-time fluorescent quantitation polymerase chain reaction (RQ-PCR) were taken to detect the expression of the aquaporin protein 4 (AQP4) and its mRNA in cerebral cortex after reperfusion for 3 hours.

RESULTSThe neurologic impairment score of 1.50 +/- 0.54 in the eye-acupuncture group was significant lower than 2.63 +/- 0.92 in the model group (P < 0.01). The expression of the AQP4 protein by immunohistochemistry and western-blot respectively were 116.33 +/- 10.24 and 0.53 +/- 0.04 in the normal group, 118.97 +/- 12.72 and 0.55 +/- 0.07 in the sham operation group, and 129.30 +/- 18.36 and 0.67 +/- 0.08 in the eye-acupuncture group, with statistical significance compared to 150.88 +/- 15.82 and 0.94 +/- 0.04 in the model group (all P < 0.01), and there were significant differences between the eye-acupuncture group and the normal group (both P < 0.01). The tendency in the expression of AQP4 protein and its mRNA in all the group were almost the same.

CONCLUSIONThe eye-acupuncture therapy can relieve the cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury and the protective mechanism is related to the downregulation of the cerebral AQP4 expression.