[Development of Researches on Mechanisms of Acupuncture Intervention in Improving Myocar-dial Ischemia by Balancing Interaction between β-adrenergic Receptor and Acetylcholinergic Receptor Signal Transduction Pathway of Myocardiocytes].

The imbalance of autonomic nervous function after myocardial ischemia (MI) accelerates the development of ischemic myocardial injury. The beta-adrenergic receptor (β-AR) and muscarinic acetylcholine receptor (M-AChR) are the main receptor types of the cardiomyocyte and the binding sites of the cardiac sympathetic and parasympathetic transmitters. In the present paper, the authors review recent progress of experimental researches on the mechanisms of acupuncture therapy in the prevention and treatment of MI, mainly focusing on the signaling of β-AR and M-AChR subtypes. Results showed that acupuncture could attenuate the injury of myocardial ischemia via down-regulating the over expression of β-AR and up-regulating the expression of M-AChR protein. Correspondingly, acupuncture intervention could reverse the abnormal expression of the intracellular stimulatory G protein and inhibitory G protein caused by MI, and suppress the activity of cellular adenylate cyclase. In addition, acupuncture could also enhance the activity of nitric oxide synthase and the level of nitric oxide in the ischemic cardiomyocytes, and increase the synthesis of cyclic guanosine monophosphate, ultimately reducing the level of cyclic adenosine 3', 5'monophosphate, and lowering the activity of protein kinase A and the inward flow of Ca in cardiomyocytes. In this way, the ischemic myocardial injury is improved at last. However, some results of acupuncture intervention are not identical and need being confirmed further by more approaches.