[Experimental autoimmune cardiomyopathies in several generations of animals].
In 8 generations of mongrel rats 80 animals were immunized with minimal dozes of a mixture of homologous heart muscle homogenate and Freund's adjuvant (0.3 ml). From generation to generation, the rats demonstrated a reduction of their reproductive capacity and an increase of cardiovascular insufficiency signs. The primary lesion of the myocardium was morphologically characterized by widely spread foci of myocytolysis and hialine degeneration of muscle fibers and by an oedema of the cardiac stroma; at the same a focal-diffuse lymphoid-histiocytic infiltration occurred that should be interpreted as a hypersensitivity reaction of a delayed type. The results of the process consisted in interstitial cardiosclerosis and moderate hypertrophy of the preserved muscle fibers. Other causes excluded, this process can be considered an experimental model of autoimmune cardiomyopathy which inheritance or predisposition must be determined by a transplacental and transmammary transmission of the damaging immune complex (antigen--antibody).
D000818:Animals; D001327:Autoimmune Diseases / Q000235:genetics*; D006332:Cardiomegaly / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000235:genetics; D009202:Cardiomyopathies / Q000235:genetics*; D009206:Myocardium / Q000473:pathology; D051381:Rats
Eksperimental'nye autoimmunnye kardiomiopatii u neskol'kikh pokoleniĭ zhivotnykh.