Electroacupuncture at Bilateral Zusanli Points (ST36) Protects Intestinal Mucosal Immune Barrier in Sepsis

Sepsis results in high morbidity and mortality. Immunomodulation strategies could be an adjunctive therapy to treat sepsis. Acupuncture has also been used widely for many years in China to treat sepsis. However, the underlying mechanisms are not well-defined. We demonstrated here that EA preconditioning at ST36 obviously ameliorated CLP-induced intestinal injury and high permeability and reduced the mortality of CLP-induced sepsis rats. Moreover, electroacupuncture (EA) pretreatment exerted protective effects on intestinal mucosal immune barrier by increasing the concentration of sIgA and the percentage of CD3+, γ/δ, and CD4+ T cells and the ratio of CD4+/CD8+ T cells. Although EA at ST36 treatments immediately after closing the abdomen in the CLP procedure with low-frequency or high-frequency could not reduce the mortality of CLP-induced sepsis in rats, these EA treatments could also significantly improve intestinal injury index in rats with sepsis and obviously protected intestinal mucosal immune barrier. In conclusion, our findings demonstrated that EA at ST36 could improve intestinal mucosal immune barrier in sepsis induced by CLP, while the precise mechanism underlying the effects needs to be further elucidated.