Integrated traditional Chinese medicine alleviates sciatica while regulating gene expression in peripheral blood.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Although integrated traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has long been indicated to be effective in the treatment of sciatica and is widely used in the management of this condition, the mechanism by which integrated TCM alleviates sciatica has not yet been fully defined, and the effect of integrated TCM on gene expression in the peripheral blood of patients with sciatica is still unknown. We performed this study to investigate the effect of integrated TCM on peripheral blood gene expression in patients with sciatica and to explore new clues for studying the mechanism of integrated TCM in alleviating sciatica. METHODS: We used a microarray to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the peripheral blood of patients with sciatica and healthy controls (DEGs-baseline), bioinformatic analysis to reveal the characteristics of DEGs-baseline, and the key genes that contribute to the gene dysregulation. A microarray was also used to identify DEGs in the peripheral blood of patients with sciatica after integrated TCM treatment compared with those at baseline, and the expression levels of DEGs were validated by qRT-PCR. RESULTS: We identified 153 DEGs-baseline, which included 131 upregulated genes and 22 downregulated genes. Bioinformatic analysis revealed that most of the DEGs-baseline were related to immunity and the inflammatory response and that TLR4, MMP9, MPO, CAMP, RETN, TLR5, and IL1RN were key genes involved in the dysregulation of genes in the peripheral blood of patients with sciatica. The expression levels of TLR5, IL1RN, SLC8A1, RBM20, GPER1, IL27, SOCS1, and GRTP1-AS1 were decreased in the peripheral blood of patients after integrated TCM treatment compared with that at baseline, which was accompanied by relief of pain. CONCLUSION: Integrated TCM treatment relieved pain while regulating the gene expression of TLR5, IL1RN, SLC8A1, RBM20, GPER1, IL27, SOCS1, and GRTP1-AS1 in the peripheral blood of patients with sciatica. Our study provides new clues for studying the mechanism of TCM in treating sciatica.