iTRAQ-Based Proteomics Analysis of Plasma of Myasthenia Gravis Patients Treated with Jia Wei Bu Zhong Yi Qi Decoction

Abstract

Myasthenia gravis (MG) is an autoimmune disease. A proportion of MG patients did not get satisfactory results after treatment with pyridostigmine and prednisone. Jia Wei Bu Zhong Yi Qi (Jia Wei BZYQ) decoction, a water extract from multiple herbs, has been demonstrated to be effective in the treatment of multiple "Qi deficiency type" diseases including MG in China. In this text, we investigated protein alterations in the plasma from healthy volunteers (C), MG patients without any treatment (T1), MG patients with routine western medical treatment (T2), and MG patients with combined treatments of Jia Wei BZYQ decoction and routine western medicines (T3) and identified some potential proteins involved in the pathogenesis and treatment of MG. iTRAQ (isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation) and 2D-LC-MS/MS (two-dimensional liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry technologies) were employed to screen differentially expressed proteins. e identification, quantification, functional annotation, and interaction of proteins were analyzed by matching software and databases. In our project, 618 proteins were identified, among which 447 proteins had quantitative data. e number of differentially expressed proteins was 110, 117, 143, 115, 86, and 158 in T1 vs. C, T2 vs. C, T2 vs. T1, T3 vs. C, T3 vs. T1, and T3 vs. T2 groups, respectively. Functional annotation results showed that many differentially expressed proteins were closely associated with immune responses. For instance, some key proteins such as C-reactive protein, apolipoprotein C-III, apolipoprotein A-II, alpha-actinin-1, and thrombospondin-1 have been found to be abnormally expressed in T3 group compared to T1 group or T2 group. Interaction network analyses also provided some potential biomarkers or targets for MG management.

Objectivization study of acupuncture Deqi and brain modulation mechanisms: a review

“…In recent years, such phenomena have also been observed in humans (Dimitrov et al, 2021;Li T. et al, 2021). A growing body of studies are devoted to explaining the nature of the meridians, including neural-fluid-low-flow resistance, fascial neuromodulation, connective tissue matrices, and low-waterresistance channels (Yang and Han, 2015;Zhang et al, 2015Zhang et al, , 2019Bianco, 2019;Yonghong et al, 2020). In addition to the material properties of meridians, their functional, temporal, and cultural properties are gradually being emphasized (Ye et al, 2022).…”