Clinical & Experimental Cardiology
Open Access
ISSN: 2155-9880
ISSN: 2155-9880
Cristiane Dias, Julio C Francisco, Marco A Cardoso, Ricardo C Cunha, Rossana B Simeoni, Bassam F Mogharbel, Nelson I Miyague, José R Faria-Neto, Cristina P Baena, Katherine AT Carvalho and Luiz C Guarita-Souza
Objective: Investigate the functional and histopathological effects of combined transplantation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and skeletal myoblasts (SM) in rats submitted to doxorubicin (DOX) induced cardiomyopathy.
Methods: Myocardiopathy was induced through intraperitoneal applications of 3.75 mg/kg/day DOX once a week for 4 weeks in all experimental animals. Echocardiography examination was conducted to evaluate heart function. Myocardial cell apoptosis was examined morphologically by optical microscopy. The expression of both, von Willebrand factor and MyoD proteins was analysed using immunohistochemical staining.
Results: Our results showed that all the experimental animals developed cardio-toxicity and exhibited decrease in heart function 4 weeks after the administration of DOX (P<0.05). The ventricular function significantly improved in rats that received sub-epicardial injection of co-culture of SM and MSC (CO group) when compared to rats that received only saline sub-epicardial injection (CG group) (P<0.05).
Conclusion: The results of this study provide evidences that the myocardial co-culture transplantation of SM and MSCs contributed to the treatment the DOX-induced cardiotoxicity.