Purinergic ATP triggers moxibustion-induced local anti-nociceptive effect on inflammatory pain model

Purinergic signalling adenosine and its A1 receptors have been demonstrated to get involved in the mechanism of acupuncture (needling therapy) analgesia. However, whether purinergic signalling would be responsible for the local analgesic effect of moxibustion therapy, the predominant member in acupuncture family procedures also could trigger analgesic effect on pain diseases, it still remains unclear. In this study, we applied moxibustion to generate analgesic effect on complete Freund’s adjuvant (CFA)-induced inflammatory pain rats and detected the purine released from moxibustioned-acupoint by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) approach. Intramuscular injection of ARL67156 into the acupoint Zusanli (ST36) to inhibit the breakdown of ATP showed the analgesic effect of moxibustion was increased while intramuscular injection of ATPase to speed up ATP hydrolysis caused a reduced moxibustion-induced analgesia. These data implied that purinergic ATP at the location of ST36 acupoint is a potentially beneficial factor for moxibustion-induced analgesia.