Expression of the Wilms' tumor gene Wt1 in the epicardium is critical for normal heart development. Mouse embryos with inactivated Wt1 gene have extremely thin ventricles, which can result in heart failure and death. Here, we demonstrate that Wt1 can be activated in adult hearts by local ischemia. Wt1 mRNA was increased more than twofold in the left ventricular myocardium of rats between 1 day ...

Atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) and brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) are cardiac hormones, secreted by the atria and ventricles, respectively, in the normal adult heart. They participate in the regulation of blood pressure and body fluid homeostasis and modify growth and development of cardiovascular tissues and bone. Levels of ANP are higher in the fetal circulation than in adults, and fetal v...

Arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia/cardiomyopathy (ARVD/C) is characterised by morphological and histological changes in the ventricles. Progressive myocyte loss fibrofatty tissue replacement, producing islands of scar, can lead to reentrant tachycardia sudden cardiac death. It usually presents as chest pain, palpitations, heart failure, or syncope. The majority cases are seen before ag...

Background: Assessment of myocardial function is essential in heart disease, but in regard to systolic and diastolic functions such evaluation has limitation. Ejection fraction is difficult to assess in abnormally-shaped ventricles, and diastolic inflow velocity pattern may be fused because of tachycardia. Objective: A myocardial performance index (MPI) or Tei index has been developed for adult...

We studied the content and distribution of heart-specific markers troponin I and troponin T in relation to conventional non-heart specific myoglobin and alpha-hydroxybutyric acid dehydrogenase (HBD) in the hearts of 34 patients who died of various causes. Tissue was obtained from the right and left ventricles, the interventricular septum, and the right and left atria. We found significant diffe...

OBJECTIVE Titin isoform expression patterns were examined to explain previously observed genetic differences in rat cardiac passive tension. METHODS Rat ventricles from male spontaneously hypertensive (SHR) and Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats (normotensive) were used to analyze the titin isoform patterns. The hypertensive status was verified by blood pressure measurements and heart weight to body wei...

Cardiac fibrosis is one of the deleterious events accompanying hypertension that may be implicated in the progression toward heart failure. To determine the mechanisms involved in fibrosis and the role of hemodynamic versus humoral factors, we studied the expression of genes involved in hypertrophy and fibrosis in the heart of rats treated with aldosterone for 2 months with addition of 1% NaCl ...

Cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs) in the primary and secondary heart fields contribute to the formation of all major cell types in the mammalian heart. While some CPCs remain undifferentiated in midgestation and postnatal hearts, very little is known about their proliferation and differentiation potential. In this study, using an Nkx2.5 cell lineage-restricted reporter mouse model, we provide evi...

The locations, projections, and functions of the intracardiac ganglia are incompletely understood. Immunocytochemical labeling with the general neuronal marker protein gene product 9.5 (PGP 9.5) was used to determine the distribution of intracardiac neurons throughout the cat atria and ventricles. Fluorescence microscopy was used to determine the number of neurons within these ganglia. There ar...