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Electroacupuncture Attenuates Reference Memory Impairment Associated with Astrocytic NDRG2 Suppression in APP/PS1 Transgenic Mice

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Abstract

Electroacupuncture (EA) has demonstrated therapeutic potential for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). A previous study reported that N-myc downstream-regulated gene 2 (NDRG2) was upregulated in the brain of patients with AD. In the present study, we investigated the effects of repeated EA administration on reference memory impairment and the role of NDRG2 in an amyloid precursor protein (APP)/presenilin-1 (PS1) double transgenic mouse model. Age-matched wild-type and transgenic mice were treated with EA (once per day for 30 min) for 4 weeks (four courses of 5 days EA administration and 2 days rest) beginning at 10 months of age. At seven and ten postnatal months of age and following a 4-week EA treatment regime, mice received training in the Morris water maze (MWM) and a probe test. Brain tissue was analyzed via Western blot and double-label immunofluorescence. Beginning at 7 months of age, APP/PS1 mice began to exhibit deficits in reference memory in the MWM test, an impairment associated with upregulation of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and NDRG2. Four weeks of EA administration significantly ameliorated cognitive impairments and suppressed GFAP and NDRG2 upregulation. In conclusion, our findings demonstrated that EA administration can alleviate reference memory deficits and suppress NDRG2 upregulation in an AD transgenic mouse model. This study provides supportive evidence for EA as an effective therapeutic intervention for AD, as well as NDRG2 as a novel target for AD treatment.

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Abbreviations

AD:

Alzheimer's disease

APP:

β-Amyloid precursor protein

EA:

Electroacupuncture

GFAP:

Glial fibrillary acidic protein

NDRG2:

N-myc downstream-regulated gene 2

LTD:

Long-term depression

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by research grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81102631, 81000813), the Changjiang Scholar and Innovative Research Team in University (Grant 2010 CXTD01),and the Major Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30930091).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anesthesiology, Xijing Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, 710032, Shaanxi Province, China

    Feng Wang, Haixing Zhong, Xuying Li, Xin Li, Qiang Wang & Lize Xiong

  2. Department of Orthopaedics, Xijing Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, 710032, Shaanxi Province, China

    Ye Peng & Wei Liang

  3. Department of Psychiatry, University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research at The Royal, Ottawa, K1Z 7K4, Canada

    Renee Kinden

  4. Department of Neurology, Xijing Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, 710032, Shaanxi Province, China

    Ming Shi

  5. Department of Anesthesiology, Stony Brook University School of Medicine, Stony Brook, NY, 11794, USA

    Lixin Liu

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  1. Feng Wang
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Correspondence to Qiang Wang or Lize Xiong.

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Feng Wang and Haixing Zhong contributed equally to this work.

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Wang, F., Zhong, H., Li, X. et al. Electroacupuncture Attenuates Reference Memory Impairment Associated with Astrocytic NDRG2 Suppression in APP/PS1 Transgenic Mice. Mol Neurobiol 50, 305–313 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12035-013-8609-1

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