Enteroviral infection in end stage dilated cardiomyopathy

In order to evaluate the role of enteroviral infections in end stage dilated cardiomyopathy, RNA was isolated from left ventricular myocardium of patients with dilated cardiomyopathy explanted during heart transplantation (n = 6) and from control hearts (n = 8), then probed using a dot blot procedure with two well-defined enteroviral cloned cDNA probes. One of the cardiomyopathic heart samples hybridized with the enteroviral probes, while RNA samples from the other diseased heart and the control heart demonstrated no hybridization. To verify further the enteroviral infection, a cDNA prepared from the positive heart RNA hybridized with Southern blotted coxsackievirus B3 and poliovirus 1 nucleotide sequences, while a control sample, which gave negative results in the dot blot, showed no hybridization to the enteroviral sequence. These results provide evidence for an enteroviral infection in certain patients with end stage dilated cardiomyopathy.