类风湿关节炎（RA）是一种病因病机未明的自身免疫性疾病，迄今未有根治性药物成熟和面世应用。蜂针作为中医药治疗RA的众多疗法中较为独特的一种，其止痛、消炎、防止关节继续变形的作用非常明显。申请者前期研究表明：蜂针治疗RA是通过对细胞因子的免疫调控和抑制滑膜细胞的异常凋亡来发挥作用的，并且具有量效、时效关系。我们在研究中发现蜂针治疗RA的疗效跟蜂刺的腧穴选择有一定关系，且长期接受蜂针治疗能明显抑制骨损害。基于此，我们申请了本项目，拟在量效、时效关系的研究基础上，探讨蜂针治疗RA的穴效关系及机制，为蜂针治疗RA最佳选穴处方以及标准化方案的制定提供有力的实验依据；并进一步实验验证我们提出的“蜂针是通过提高OPG和OPG/RANKL水平，促进OPG表达，下调破骨细胞RANK受体及下游相关信号通路的表达，抑制OC成熟分化，从而起到骨保护作用的”假说，为蜂针对RA的骨保护作用提供理论依据。

Rheumatoid arthritis(RA) is an autoimmune disease with unknown etiology and pathogenesis. There is no radical drug being developed and applied. As one of the most unique therapies for the treatment of RA in traditional Chinese medicine, bee needling has significant efficacy of analgesia, anti-inflammation, prevention of joint deformation. Our previous studies have shown that bee needling plays an important role in the treatment of RA through immune regulation of cytokines and inhibition of abnormal apoptosis of synovial cells, and has a dose-effect and time-dependent relationship. In our study, we found that the efficacy of bee needling in the treatment for RA was related to acupoints selection, and long-term bee needling treatment could significantly inhibit bone damage. Therefore, we intend to investigate the relationship with efficacy and mechanism of bee needling and acupoints selection for RA, on the basis of dose-effect and time-effectiveness of bee needling, ainming to provide powerful experimental evidence of acupoints prescriptions of bee needling treatment for RA, as well as the establishment of standardized RA treatment prescription. And in the further experiment, we want to validate our hypothesis that bee needling plays roles in bone protection through improving the level of OPG and OPG/RANKL, promoting OPG expression, downregulating the expression of osteoclasts RANK receptor and the downstream signaling pathways, inhibiting OC maturation and differentiation, and provide a theoretical basis for bone protection of bee needling against RA.