Acupuncture Strategies in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer's Disease

Summary

This article introduces a mouse bag fixation device capable of batch-fixing mice to reduce the stress response and improve experimental efficiency. Furthermore, the study describes an acupuncture protocol that can synergistically regulate brain and intestinal functions.

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease. Numerous studies have demonstrated that alterations in intestinal flora can influence the central nervous system (CNS) through multiple pathways, ultimately contributing to the onset and progression of AD. Recent research suggests the limitations of pharmacological therapies, emphasizing the need for multi-targeted interventions in AD treatment. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) highlights the physiological and pathological relationship between the brain and the intestine. Therefore, therapeutic strategies targeting gastrointestinal regulation to enhance brain function are of great importance for delaying the pathological progression of AD. This protocol introduces a brain-intestine coordination acupuncture method. The experimental results showed that this acupuncture protocol could modulate intestinal flora, suppress intestinal inflammation and neuroinflammation in AD model mice, thereby achieving bidirectional therapeutic effects on brain-intestine regulation. Moreover, a mouse bag fixation device for acupuncture treatment was described in this study, which can reduce stress reaction and improve experimental efficiency.

Introduction

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disorder, with memory loss, cognitive impairment, personality changes, and mental behavioral abnormalities as its main clinical manifestations¹. The pathogenesis of AD is complex and still unclear, and inflammation has received much attention as a potential factor in the development of AD. Recently, numerous studies have proved that intestinal flora dysbiosis plays a vital role in the pathogenesis of AD^2,3. The pathological characteristics of intestinal flora dysbiosis have been observed in both AD patients and AD model an....

Protocol

All experiments were conducted in accordance with the National Institutes of Health Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, with the approval of the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine (ID: bucm-4-2021102701-4032). The reagents and the equipment used are listed in the Table of Materials.

1. Animal preparation

1. Select APP/PS1 transgenic animals (male, 6-month-old, 28-32 g) with C57BL/6 background and their corresponding wild-type C57BL/6 littermates (male, 6-month-old, 28-32 g) for the experiment.
2. House the mice in the animal facility at a temperature of 24 °C ± 2 ....

Results

Behavioral responses of mice to acupuncture intervention with or without the use of the mouse bag fixation device
To evaluate whether using a rodent restraint bag during acupuncture intervention improves experimental efficiency, a total of 16 male C57BL/6 mice were randomly assigned to a device usage group and a non-usage group (n = 8 per group). The experiment was conducted by an experimenter proficient in acupuncture operations. For the device usage group, mice were secured using the mouse bag fixa.......

Discussion

The intestinal flora constitutes a significant component of the intestinal immune system. Intestinal flora disorder often leads to excessive activation and release of intestinal inflammatory pathways and local inflammatory mediators^23,24. Studies have confirmed that the increase in intestinal barrier permeability, induced by inflammatory injury to the intestinal mucosa, further triggers neuroinflammation and exacerbates the pathological progression of AD

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
0.9% saline, 0.01M PBS powder	Beijing suolaibao technology Co., Ltd.	IN9000, P1022-10
75% medical alcohol, iodophor	Beijing oubei biology science and technology Co., Ltd.	OB40126-1, HX0098A	Used for disinfection
Acupuncture needles	Zhongyan Taihe Co., Ltd.	ZY500
APP/PS1 mice and male C57BL/6 mice	Cavens Biogle (Suzhou) Model Animal Research Co., Ltd.	SCXK (Su) 2018-0002
Cardboard	Wenzhou Aguo Paper Co., Ltd.	1010	Used for making mouse bags
Centrifugal machine	Eppendorf,Germany	5811FR080384
ELISA kits	Jiangsu kete trading Co., Ltd.	F5171-A	Used to detect TNF-α level
Gauze mesh	VAGBG Co., Ltd.	24A	Used for making mouse bags
Illumina Nextseq 2000 platform	Illumina, San Diego, USA	MS-103-1002	Sequence the library
Morris water maze detection system	Chengdu Taimeng Technology Co., Ltd.	WMT 200A
NEXTFLEX Rapid DNA-Seq Kit	Bioo Scientific, Austin, Texas, USA	NOVA-5188	Build the library of the purified PCR products