Objective To observe the effect of moxibustion pretreatment on the expression of leukocytic T-box transcription factor expressed in T cells(T-bet) mRNA and trans-acting T-cell-specific transcription factor GATA-3 mRNA in athletes undergoing heavy load training

so as to study its mechanism underlying prevention of imbalance of immune function.Methods Twelve male middle-long distance running athletes were equally randomized into control group and treatment group.The althelets in the treatment group accepted alternate moxibustion pretreatment of Guanyuan(CV 12)+bilateral Zusanli(ST 36) or Guanyuan(CV 12)+ bilateral Sanyinjiao(SP 6) for 30 min

once a day for 4 weeks

and beginning from the 1st day of the heavy load trai-ning on till the end of the modulatory training.The althletes of the control group were asked to conduct simple heavy load running training.Leukocytes in the collected venous blood samples were acquired following erythrocyte lysis

centrifugation and removal of the supernatant.The expression levels of leukocytic T-bet mRNA and GATA-3 mRNA were detected before

3 weeks after the heavy load running training and 1 week after the adjustment training.Results In comparison with pre-training

the expression levels of leukocytic T-bet mRNA were increased slightly after heavy load running training(7.24%

16.84%) and after adjustment training(4.52%

14.8%) in both control and treatment groups(P>0.05).After heavy load running training

the expression le-vels of leukocytic GATA-3 mRNA were dow-regulated mildly(13.14%

34.04%) in both control and treatment groups(P>0.05)

but upregulated considerably in the control group(59.12%

P<0.05) rather than in the treatment group(-17.02%

P>0.05).The GATA-3 mRNA expression level of the treatment group was significantly lower than that of the control group(P<0.05).The ratios of leukocytic T-bet mRNA/GATA-3 mRNA were increased by 13.58% and 75.16% after heavy load running training and decreased by 29.63% and increased by 35.4%

respectively after adjustment training in the control and treatment groups in comparison with pre-training.No significant differences were found between two groups in the expression levels of T-bet mRNA and the ratios of T-bet mRNA/GATA-3 mRNA at the 3 time-points

and in the expression levels of GATA-3 mRNA before and after heavy load running training(P>0.05).Conclusion Moxibustion pretreatment can inhibit the expression of leukocytic GATA-3 mRNA after adjustment training in the middle-long distance heavy load running athletes

which may contribute to its effect in regulating imbalance of Th 1/Th 2 after heavy load training.