Stress signal to survival and apoptosis.

This investigation focused on whether apoptosis can be observed in some heart diseases. Apoptosis was examined immunochemically using monoclonal antibodies such as p53, Bcl-2 and cyclin E, A, and B1 in parallel with flow cytometry. Left ventricular myocardium was obtained at autopsy from 40 patients with acute myocarditis (AM; N = 10, 6 males, 4 females, mean age 56 +/- 13 years), chronic myocarditis (CM; N = 10, 5 males, 5 females, mean age 48 +/- 16 years), dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM; N = 10, 7 males, 3 females, mean age 60 +/- 11 years), and no heart disease (Cont; N = 10, 5 males, 5 females, mean age 63 +/- 14 years). Cell cycle analysis of myocytes by flow cytometry revealed that the relative content of G2M phase in acute myocarditis was far higher than those in other heart diseases (AM, 12.3 +/- 3.7%; CM, 5.2 +/- 4.5%; DCM, 6.3 +/- 4.0%; Cont, 3.4 +/- 1.8%; Mean +/- SD). Expression of p53 was observed mainly in myocytes from chronic myocarditis. Expression of Bcl-2, on the other hand, was detected in myocytes from acute myocarditis. Results suggest that apoptosis may play some role in the repairing process of myocardial inflammation.