The effects of acupuncture on osteoarthritis (OA) pathogenesis have been demonstrated in vitro and in animal models. However, the potential for acupuncture to mediate protective effects on obese-induced OA has not been examined. Here, we investigated the effects of different acupuncture patterns on OA pathogenesis in high-fat diet- (HFD-) induced obese rats. After 12-week diet-induced obesity, obese rats were treated with three acupuncture protocols for 2 weeks, including ST36, GB34, and ST36+GB34. The results showed that the three acupuncture protocols both prevented obesity-induced cartilage matrix degradation and MMP expression and mitigated obesity-induced systemic and local inflammation but had different regulatory effects on lipid metabolism and gut microbiota disorder of obese-induced OA rats. Furthermore, the three acupuncture protocols increased the microbial diversity and altered the structure of community of feces in obese rats. We found that ST36 and GB34 could inhibit proinflammatory shift in the gut microbiome with an increase in the ratio of Bacteroidetes/Firmicutes and promote the recovery of relative abundance of Clostridium, Akkermansia, Butyricimonas, and Lactococcus. Although both ST36 and GB34 had an anti-inflammatory effect on serum inflammatory mediators, only the acupuncture protocol with both ST36 and GB34 could effectively inhibit LPS-mediated joint inflammation in obesity rats. Therefore, relieving obesity-related chronic inflammation, lipid metabolism disorder, and gut microbiota disorder may be an important mechanism for acupuncture with ST36 and GB34 to promote OA recovery.

中文翻译：

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电针可预防高脂饮食诱导的肥胖大鼠的骨关节炎。

已经在体外和动物模型中证明了针灸对骨关节炎（OA）发病机制的影响。但是，尚未研究针灸介导对肥胖诱发的OA的保护作用的潜力。在这里，我们研究了不同的针刺方式对高脂饮食（HFD-）诱导的肥胖大鼠OA发病机理的影响。在饮食引起的肥胖症12周后，对肥胖大鼠进行三种针刺方案治疗2周，包括ST36，GB34和ST36 + GB34。结果表明，三种针刺方案均能预防肥胖诱导的软骨基质降解和MMP表达，减轻肥胖诱导的全身和局部炎症，但对肥胖诱导的OA大鼠的脂质代谢和肠道菌群失调具有不同的调节作用。此外，这三种针灸方案增加了肥胖大鼠的微生物多样性并改变了粪便的群落结构。我们发现，ST36和GB34可以抑制肠道微生物组的促炎性转变，同时增加拟杆菌（Bacteroidetes）/拟杆菌（Firmicutes）的比例，并促进相对丰度的恢复。梭菌，Akkermansia，Butyricimonas和乳球菌。尽管ST36和GB34均对血清炎性介质具有抗炎作用，但只有ST36和GB34的针灸方案才能有效抑制肥胖大鼠中LPS介导的关节发炎。因此，减轻肥胖相关的慢性炎症，脂质代谢紊乱和肠道菌群失调可能是ST36和GB34针刺促进OA恢复的重要机制。