High rate of ventricular septal defects in WKY rats

In 1979, we first reported occurrence of biventricular hypertrophy in the original normotensive Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) strain obtained from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, which was derived directly from the Kyoto laboratory of Okamoto. At that time, we recommended that both ventricles be weighted when WKY are studied so that invalid conclusions are not made. Because no paper confirmed these findings for almost 20 years, heart weights were reported in only a few WKY studies, and the cause of this biventricular hypertrophy remained unknown, we re-evaluated this problem in commercially available rats. We, therefore, investigated WKY rats using transthoracic echocardiography to define the congenital heart defect. Up to 28% of commercially available WKY rats demonstrated severe congenital cardiac abnormalities associated with biventricular hypertrophy. Ventricular septal defect with pulmonary regurgitation was the most commonly encountered cardiac defect; other abnormalities included patent ductus arteriosus, and valvular defects. Pathologic and invasive hemodynamic studies confirmed these echocardiographic findings. Because this defect occurs in a large number of WKY rats obtained commercially from 2 different sources, investigators using this strain must carefully measure both ventricular weights to be certain that inappropriate and invalid conclusions are not derived therefrom.