Objective Here, we explored molecular changes that could potentially mediate healing effects of Gua Sha — a method employed by the Chinese traditional medicine with proven track records of safe and efficient applicat...Objective Here, we explored molecular changes that could potentially mediate healing effects of Gua Sha — a method employed by the Chinese traditional medicine with proven track records of safe and efficient applications dating back to ancient times as well as support from randomized controlled trials performed by modern medical studies — yet remaining almost entirely unexplored by the modern-day high-throughput methods of the-omics sciences.Methods We investigated transcriptome changes occurring shortly after Gua Sha treatment in the whole blood of healthy volunteers using bulk RNA-seq analysis. We applied various analytical tools to identify genes with consistent expression changes in multiple individuals in response to Gua Sha and their networks.Results We found that while the changes were very subtle and individual-specific, we could identify consistent upregulation of three histone genes. Further analysis of the potential regulatory networks of these histone genes revealed the enrichment of functions involved in the immune response and inflammation.Conclusion The significance of these results in the context of potential effects of Gua Sha and the next steps in exploring the molecular mechanisms of action of this technique are discussed.展开更多
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 32170619 to PK and Grant No. 32000462 to FQ]the Research Fund for International Senior Scientists from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 32150710525 to PK]+1 种基金the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province,China [Grant No. 2020J02006 to PK]the Scientific Research Funds of Huaqiao University [Grant No. 15BS101 to PK and Grant No. 22BS114 to FQ]。
文摘Objective Here, we explored molecular changes that could potentially mediate healing effects of Gua Sha — a method employed by the Chinese traditional medicine with proven track records of safe and efficient applications dating back to ancient times as well as support from randomized controlled trials performed by modern medical studies — yet remaining almost entirely unexplored by the modern-day high-throughput methods of the-omics sciences.Methods We investigated transcriptome changes occurring shortly after Gua Sha treatment in the whole blood of healthy volunteers using bulk RNA-seq analysis. We applied various analytical tools to identify genes with consistent expression changes in multiple individuals in response to Gua Sha and their networks.Results We found that while the changes were very subtle and individual-specific, we could identify consistent upregulation of three histone genes. Further analysis of the potential regulatory networks of these histone genes revealed the enrichment of functions involved in the immune response and inflammation.Conclusion The significance of these results in the context of potential effects of Gua Sha and the next steps in exploring the molecular mechanisms of action of this technique are discussed.
基金Large Instruments Open Foundation of East China Normal UniversityNational Natural Science Foundation of China(21373086)+1 种基金National Science Fund of China for Excellent Young Scholars(21522303)Basic Research Project of Shanghai Science and Technology Committee(14JC1491000)
