The influence of mitochondrial biogenesis of skin under acupuncture effect
Authors: Jorge Maria Lúcia S. G. , Pawloski Priscila Lúcia , Cruz Edgar Ferreira , Jorge Luciana 
Published: June 2021

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is known as an ancient science whose concept of canals has been used for a long time, almost 6,000 years, and acupuncture is one of its key elements. However, despite the holistic aspect of acupuncture, it is in the skin that all therapeutic action is processed. Each point is a trigger for a wide range of specific responses. The epidermis, a cornified envelope that offers the first physical barrier is also the first immunological modulation. When a stimulus occurs the tissue is affected in different ways and certainly different responses. The inflammatory condition is established through activated dendritic cells, effector T cells generated and attracted by skin tissue and epithelial cells, but this does not always happen this way when acupoints are triggered. Mitochondrial dysfunction has been association with inflammation. Psoriasis is an immune‐mediated disease that causes raised, red, scaly patches to appear on the skin. It is a chronic inflammation with an alteration in keratinocyte proliferation and immune cell infiltration. The positive results observed from acupuncture for psoriasis treatment are already established. However, it is necessary to better understand the effect of acupuncture on the skin.

This study proposes to evaluate the effect of Tung's acupuncture on the immunological aspects, and the mitochondrial biogenesis of the skin on experimental psoriasis in mice.

The study used males Balb/C mice (20 – 30 g), which were randomly sorted into four groups: naive (2), psoriasis induced by IMQ (7), psoriasis induced by IMQ treated with Tung's acupuncture (10), psoriasis induced by IMQ treated with sham acupuncture (7) . Mice were treated with Imiquimod (IMQ, Aldara; 3M Pharmaceuticals) for 15 days, on the shaved back, a dose of 62.5 mg of commercially available IMQ cream (5%). It was applied acupuncture of Tung's method, adopting 88.17, 88.18 and 88.19 points or point Yintang as Sham during 15 consecutive days, starting on day 3 of IMQ. At the end of experiment, skin samples were collected for histological study with Leishman stain, and spleen, adrenal glands, axial and inguinal lymph nodes were weighed, and submitted by immunohistochemistry for mitochondrial biogenesis analysis. Statistic tests ANOVA one way.

Treatment with IMQ caused a significant inflammatory process when compared to control, showing intense cellularity, mainly lymphocytes. (Fig. 1) The acupuncture application has reduced cell migration. In order to understand more deeply the influence of acupuncture on inflammatory skin disease, the pathway of mitochondrial biogenesis presented altered.

Our results showed the important therapeutic role of acupuncture and demonstrate that it influences the immune response and mitochondrial biogenesis, altering the cellular environment and, that experimental model of psoriasis confers the qualified instrument for its study.

Support or Funding Information

Support or Funding Information Unifesp, UFPR, CAPES and CNPq

This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.