Electroacupuncture enhances activity of adrenal nucleolar organizer regions in ovariectomized rats

Nucleolar organizer regions (NORs) may reflect the activity of cell differentiation and transcription of nucleolar rDNA; the present paper studied nucleolar organizer regions of the adrenal cortex to explore the regulatory effect of electroacupuncture (EA). Animals were divided into four groups, the ovariectomized electroacupuncture group (OV+EA group, n = 7), the ovariectomized group (OV group, n = 4), the EA group (n = 3) and the control group (CT group, n = 4). Number of AgNORs of 100 cells from zona fasciculata of the adrenal cortex in each case of the four groups was counted at random and the mean+/-SE (number/cell) in each group was calculated as follows: OV+EA group, 2.71 +/- 0.26, OV group, 1.26 +/- 0.15, EA group, 1.21 +/- 0.04 and CT group, 1.48 +/- 0.03. The mean of AgNORs in OV+EA group differed highly significantly from the other three groups (p less than 0.01) as tested with ANOVA and LSD method. No significant difference was found among the other three groups. Gross specimen examination showed that adrenals in the OV+EA group were significantly heavier than those in the other three groups (p less than 0.01). Vaginal smears showed that a response like estrogen-induced one with exfoliative cells appeared in the OV+EA group. EA had no significant effect on normal rats. The results suggest that EA may promote the synthesis and secretion of adrenal steriod hormones, the androgen of which will then be transformed into estrogen in other tissues, thus compensating the deficiency of estrogen induced by ovariectomy.