Moxibustion Improves Chronic Heart Failure by Inhibiting Autophagy and Inflammation via Upregulation of mTOR Expression

Figures

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  Figure 1. The flow diagram of experimental protocol. i.p.: intraperitoneal injection; biw: biweekly; qd: quaque die; ADR : adriamycin; RAPA: rapamycin.

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  Figure 2. Moxibustion improves chronic heart failure cardiac structure and function. Representative M-mode echocardiograms were recorded. (a) Control. (b) Model. (c) Moxibustion. Echocardiography was carried out. (d) EF. (e) FS. (f) HR. (g) LV. (h) LA. (i) LVPW. (j) IVS. BNP (k) and NT-pro BNP (l) levels of the rat serum were determined using ELISA kit. All data are presented as mean ± SD from three independent experiments (n = 7–9). ∗p < 0.05; ∗∗p < 0.01.

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  Figure 3. Moxibustion increases mTOR expression in chronic heart failure rats. (a) Immunoblot levels of mTOR, p-mTOR in rats of left ventricular tissues in each group. mTOR (b) and p-mTOR (c). Protein levels were measured using western blot analysis. mTOR mRNA level was measured using qRT-PCR analysis (d). All data are presented as mean ± SD from three independent experiments (n = 7–9). ∗∗p < 0.01.

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  Figure 4. Moxibustion effects the gene expression of autophagy-associated genes in chronic heart failure rats. Autophagy-associated genes, including Vps34 (a), ATG3 (b), ATG5 (c), ATG7 (d), ATG12 (e), and ATG13 (f) were examined via RT-PCR analysis. All data is presented as mean ± SD from three independent experiments (n = 7–9). ∗p < 0.05; ∗∗p < 0.01.

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  Figure 5. Moxibustion inhibited inflammatory factors in the CHF rat model (original magnification: ×400). Representative images of ICAM-1 (a), VCAM-1 (b), MMP-2 (c), and MMP-9 (d). Quantification data of ICAM-1 expression (e), VCAM-1 expression (f), MMP-2 expression (g), and MMP-9 expression (h). All data are presented as means ± SD from three independent experiments (n = 7–9). ∗p < 0.05; ∗∗p < 0.01.

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  Figure 6. Correlation analysis. R language was used to draw a correlogram chart. Positive correlations are displayed in blue and negative correlations in red. Color intensity and the size of the circle are proportional to the correlation coefficients (n = 390).