Mouse Electroacupuncture Fixation Device Fabrication for Electroacupuncture Pretreatment in Diabetic Cardiomyopathy Mouse Model

Summary

Here, we present a protocol to establish a mouse model of diabetic cardiomyopathy and a mouse electroacupuncture fixation device for the use of electroacupuncture in mice, which can fix the mice more gently during treatment.

Abstract

Diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a complication of diabetes that can progress to heart failure and is limited by the use of medications. Electroacupuncture is an effective way as a traditional Chinese medicine external treatment method to treat diabetic cardiomyopathy. A mouse electroacupuncture fixation device can easily and gently fix mice during electroacupuncture treatment and expose acupoints on the abdomen and limbs of mice. This article describes the methods used to fabricate the mouse electroacupuncture fixation device with all the steps and precautions, establishing a mouse model of diabetic cardiomyopathy with comprehensive measures to comprehensively record changes in blood biochemical indices such as blood glucose. The experiment was done with 3 groups: a control group, a model group, and a pretreatment group, with 10 mice in each group. The pretreatment group was treated by Biaoben acupoints electroacupuncture pretreatment once every alternate day for a total of 7 sessions. After electroacupuncture, the mice in the pretreatment group showed a decrease in blood glucose accompanied by a reduction in the symptoms of diabetes.

Introduction

Diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a common complication of diabetes mellitus characterized by changes in cardiac structure and ventricular diastolic and contractile function of a specific lesion, further developing into heart failure. It is one of the leading causes of death in diabetes mellitus patients^1,2, and its increasing prevalence has attracted widespread attention in recent years³. It has been found that the pathogenesis of this disease mainly includes insulin resistance, inflammatory response, abnormal lipid metabolism, oxidative stress, mitochondrial damag....

Protocol

All animal experiments comply with the 3Rs principle of animal ethics and have been reviewed and approved by the Committee on the Ethics of Animal Experiments of Hubei University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (Ethical clearance number HUCMS00309300). Here, 30 SPF-grade mice were obtained from the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Quality certificate NO.42010200009690).

1. Fabrication of the electroacupuncture fixation device

1. For the assembly of an electroacupuncture fixation device obtain a transparent acrylic hollow plastic tube and an electroacupuncture therapy instrument as the mai....

Results

We followed the procedure described above and established a mouse model of diabetic cardiomyopathy. As can be observed in the HE-stained pictures (Figure 4), the mice in the control group had intact myocardial tissue structure, regular arrangement of cardiomyocytes, and no obvious lesions. In the model group, the myocardial cells were irregularly arranged, some myocardial cells were damaged and disintegrated (black arrow), and obvious inflammatory cell infiltration was observed in the inters.......

Discussion

In this study, mice that had high blood glucose and showed signs of diabetes were obtained by intraperitoneal injection of the Streptozotocin solution, which is an effective and recognized method of modeling²⁷. PC6 was selected as the Biao point, and ST36 was selected as the Ben point according to the theory of Biaoben acupoints²⁸. All of these points are on the limbs of the mouse, so the acrylic tubes that can expose the abdomen and immobilize the limbs are well suited for.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
acrylic hollow plastic	Henan Zhike	ZK-GDQ
acupuncture needle	Hwato	0.3 mm x 13 mm
C57BL/6  mice	Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention
citric acid monohydrate	Sigma	C1909
electroacupuncture therapy instrument	Hwato	SDZ-V
electronic balance	Henan Zhike	ZK-DST
glucose meters	LifeScan	OneTouch VerioVue
glucose test strip	LifeScan	OneTouch Verio
streptozotocin	Sigma	S0130
trisodium citrate dihydrate	Sigma	W302600
tweezers	Labshark	130302001