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Absence of enteroviral RNA in hearts explanted from patients with dilated cardiomyopathy

M G Crespo-Leiro1, M Hermida-Prieto, F Peña

  • 1Heart Transplant Programme, Hospital Juan Canalejo and Instituto de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad de La Coruña, Spain. MarisaCrespo@canalejo.cesga.es

The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation : the Official Publication of the International Society for Heart Transplantation
|March 7, 2000
PubMed

Insights

This study found no evidence of enterovirus in heart tissue from dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) patients. This suggests enteroviruses may not persist in myocardial tissue during DCM development.

Area of Science:

  • Cardiology
  • Virology
  • Pathogenesis

Background:

  • The link between enterovirus infection and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) pathogenesis is not well understood.
  • Investigating enterovirus presence in DCM is crucial for understanding disease mechanisms.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To determine the prevalence of enterovirus in explanted hearts from DCM patients.
  • To compare enterovirus prevalence in DCM hearts versus hearts with other etiologies and healthy donor hearts.

Main Methods:

  • Analyzed 138 cardiac samples (70 healthy donors, 68 transplant recipients including 22 with DCM).
  • Utilized a highly sensitive enterovirus-specific nested reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for detection.

Main Results:

  • One positive enterovirus test result was observed but attributed to contamination.
  • Sequencing confirmed the single positive result was identical to the positive control, indicating no true viral presence.

Conclusions:

  • No evidence of enteroviral RNA was found in the explanted heart samples using nested RT-PCR.
  • This suggests that if enteroviruses contribute to DCM, they do not persist in myocardial tissue.
Abstract

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