Electroacupuncture alleviates water avoidance stress-induced irritable bowel syndrome in mice by improving intestinal barrier functions and suppressing the expression of inflammatory cytokines

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the effects and related mechanisms of electroacupuncture (EA) on irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

METHODS

Male C57BL/6 mice were randomly allocated into normal, model, and EA groups. Experimental IBS mice models were established by exposure to water avoidance stress (WAS). Mice in the EA group were treated with EA at bilateral Tianshu (ST 25) and Zusanli (ST 36) for 7 consecutive days, 15 min each day. Abdominal withdrawal reflex (AWR) tests and intestinal motility tests were performed to evaluate visceral sensitivity and intestinal motility of mice. Expression levels of tight junction proteins (TJPs) and inflammatory cytokines in colon tissues were determined through immunofluorescence, real-time polymerase chain reactions (PCR) and Western blot assays.

RESULTS

EA alleviated visceral hypersensitivity and intestinal hypermotility in WAS-induced IBS mice. Moreover, EA promoted the expression of zonula occludens (ZO)-1, claudin-1, and occludin while suppressing the expression of interleukin (IL)-8, interferon (IFN)-γ, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-αin water avoidance stress (WAS)-induced irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) mice.

CONCLUSION

EA alleviated WAS-induced IBS in mice by promoting intestinal barrier functions and suppressing the expression of inflammatory cytokines.

TiO2 nanoparticles and multi-walled carbon nanotubes monitoring and bioremediation potential using ciliates Pseudocohnilembus persalinus

In recent years, the release of nanomaterials pollutants to water bodies, to a great extent, attributed to anthropogenic activities. Their impacts on aquatic organisms as well as nanomaterial monitoring and bioremediation using organism have drawn much attentions. However, studies on relationship of nano-contaminants and aquatic organisms are very scarce. Our results showed that titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO₂-NPs) and Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) caused an obvious cell decreases on the whole, but a significant increase at 48 h TiO₂-NPs exposure, indicating a resistant mechanism in ciliates for nano-toxic. Besides, MWCNTs was more toxic to Pseudocohnilembus persalinus than that of TiO₂-NPs in terms of EC₅₀ value. It is firstly found that P. persalinus ingested and released TiO₂-NPs through cytostome and cytoproct, which might be the reason that TiO₂-NPs less toxic than MWCNTs. The significantly increased superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione S-transferase (GST) enzyme activities and expression levels were evaluated by reactive oxygen species ROS generation, which demonstrated that P. persalinus antioxidant defense enzyme played roles on nano-toxic resistant in ciliates. Moreover, the integrated biomarker response (IBR) was also determined, which demonstrated that MWCNTs had comparatively higher values than those of TiO₂-NPs after higher concentration exposure to ciliates. In addition, it was confirmed by the present work that sod, gst and cat played different roles on immunity, and the sensitivity of cat gene expression to these two nanomaterials exposure was dissimilar. Damages of shrunk as well as losses of cilia on the cell surface caused by TiO₂-NPs and MWCNTs exposure in P. persalinus using SEM revealed possible physical hazards of aggregated nanomaterials. Our findings will be helpful to understand the effect mechanisms of NPs on ciliates, and also demonstrated the possibility of P. persalinus as bio-indicator of nanomaterials in aquatic and potentials on bioremediation.