Effects of acupuncture on cortical expression of Wnt3a, β-catenin and Sox2 in a rat model of traumatic brain injury.

Objective To observe the effects of acupuncture treatment on the expression of Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathway-related genes (Wnt3a, β-catenin and Sox2) in the injured cerebral cortex of rats with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Methods A controlled impact model of TBI was established using Feeney9s free-drop method. Seventy-eight Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into the following three groups: a normal group (n=18) that was left untreated; a model group (n=30) that received no treatment after TBI; and an acupuncture group (n=30) that received acupuncture (at LI4, GV20, GV26 and GV16) after TBI. Rats in each group were randomly and equally divided into 3-day, 7-day and 14-day subgroups according to the duration of therapy. Real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) was used to measure mRNA expression of Wnt3a, β-catenin and Sox2 . Western blots were performed to determine the expression levels of WNT3a, β-Catenin and SOX2. Results Wnt3a mRNA was upregulated in the 7-day and 14-day acupuncture subgroups compared with the corresponding model subgroups (p β-catenin expression was significantly increased in the 7-day and 14-day acupuncture subgroups compared with the corresponding model subgroups (p Conclusions Acupuncture exerts a regulatory effect on the Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathway, which may in turn influence the proliferation and differentiation of endogenous neural stem cells.