Experimental Myocarditis. : II. Cardiac Lesions in Rats Induced by Immunization with Heterologous Heart Extracts : Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Prevention for Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease

Abstract

The production of myocardial lesions and circulating anti-heart antibodies has been studied in the present experiment. Twenty-one of Wistar rats were divided into 3 groups: 9 rats immunized with heterologous heart extracts, Freund's complete adjuvant and diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine, 8 rats injected phosphate buffered saline adjuvant mixture with DTP vaccine and 4 rats untreated as control. Injection of heterologous heart extracts emulsifie.d with Freund's complete adjuvant and DTP vaccine developed focal myocardial lesions in all of the subjected rats. The lesions were characterized by focal and diffuse interstitial celluar infiltration with myocardial necrosis. The circulating antibodies reacted to rat heart extracts were detected in 77.8% of the subjects. The antigen, reacted with the antibodies, located intracellular spaces in myocardium. The severity of cardiac lesions were not functional to the titer of circulating anti-heart antibodies. These data suggest that the circulating anti-heart antibodies may play little role in the pathogenesis of myocardial damage at least in this experimental myocarditis.