Myocardial interstitial fibrosis is an important contributor to the development of heart failure. Type 3 p90 ribosomal S6 kinase (RSK3) was recently shown to be required for concentric myocyte hypertrophy under in vivo pathological conditions. However, the role of RSK family members in myocardial fibrosis remains uninvestigated. Transgenic expression of α-tropomyosin containing a Glu180Gly muta...

Ginsenoside Rh2 (Rh2) is an active principal ingredient contained in ginseng (Panax ginseng Meyer), a medicinal herb used to enhance health worldwide. The present study is designed to investigate the effect of Rh2 on myocardial fibrosis in diabetic rats. In a streptozotocin-induced model of type-1 diabetic rats (STZ-diabetic rats), the increased fasting blood glucose levels and heart weight/bod...

Lesions observed in chronic chagasic cardiopathy frequently produce electrocardiographic alterations and affect cardiac function. Through a computerized morphometrical analysis we quantified the areas occupied by cardiac muscle, connective and adipose tissues in the right atrium of dogs experimentally infected with Trypanosoma cruzi. All of the infected dogs showed chronic myocarditis with vari...

C ardiac fibrosis is the consequence of extracellular cardiac matrix remodeling resulting from pathological processes, including ischemia, stretch, inflammation, and neurohormonal activation. Fibrosis can be reparative or reactive. At the site of a transmural myocardial infarction, fibrotic scarring provides protective strength and prevents myocardial rupture. Diffuse reactive fibrosis occurs r...

Background Duchenne/Becker muscular dystrophy (D/BMD) is associated with early onset cardiomyopathy, with cardiac fibrosis amongst the earliest manifestations. Changes in conventional estimates of cardiac function (e.g. ejection fraction, EF) may occur late in Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophy (DMD/BMD). Cardiac MRI tagging is a noninvasive imaging biomarker for quantifying ventricular dys...

BACKGROUND The proliferation and migration of cardiac fibroblasts are critical for the progress of cardiac fibrosis. Tripartite motif protein 72 (Trim72), also known as MG53, mediates the dynamic process of membrane fusion and exocytosis in striated muscle. However, the role of Trim72 in the proliferation and migration of cardiac fibroblasts is unknown. METHODS In the present study, we used s...