Electroacupuncture improves myocardial ischemia injury via activation of adenosine receptors

Electroacupuncture (EA) can improve myocardial ischemia (MI) injury; nevertheless, the mechanism is not entirely clear. And there were disagreements about whether the effect of EA at acupoint in disease-affected meridian is better than EA at acupoint in non-affected meridian and sham acupoint. Here, we showed that the effect of EA at Neiguan (PC6) is better than EA at Hegu (LI4) and sham acupoint in affecting RPP and ECG, increasing ATP and ADO production, decreasing AMP production, and upregulating the mRNA expression levels of A1AR, A2aAR, and A2bAR; knockdown of A1AR or A2bAR reversed the effect of EA at PC6 in alleviating MI injury; knockdown of A2aAR had no influence on the cardiac protection of EA at PC6; thus, the cardioprotective effect of EA at PC6 needs A1AR and A2bAR, instead of A2aAR; considering that the cardio protection of adenosine receptor needs activation of other adenosine receptors, one of the reasons may be that after silence of A1AR or A2bAR, EA at PC6 could not impact the expression levels of the other two adenosine receptors, and after silence of A2aAR, EA at PC6 could impact the expression levels of A1AR and A2bAR. These results suggested that EA at PC6 may be a potential and effective treatment for MI by activation of A1AR and A2bAR.