Rodrigues E, Liberti E A, Maifrino L B M, de Souza R R
Universidade Cidade de São Paulo, Brazil.
Ann Trop Med Parasitol. 2002 Mar;96(2):125-30. doi: 10.1179/000349802125000583.
The neuronal features of the hearts of mice that were acutely or chronically infected with the Y strain of Trypanosoma cruzi were compared with those of control hearts from uninfected mice. Whole-mount preparations of the murine atria, isolated by microdissection, were stained to reveal neurons with NADH-diaphorase activity. Counts, by a microscopist who was blind to the infection status of the donor mouse, revealed that there were significantly (38%) fewer such neurons in the atria from the acutely infected mice than in the atria from the control hearts. The ganglia of the infected mice were also irregularly distributed, severely damaged ganglia being found beside slightly degenerated or morphologically normal ones. Although the ganglia contained small, medium and large neurons, the apparent destruction caused by T. cruzi was confined to the large ones. As neuron counts in preparations of hearts from mice with chronic infections were 32% lower than those in the control hearts, there appears to be no additional loss of cardiac neurons as the acute infection in mice progresses to the chronic phase.
将急性或慢性感染克氏锥虫Y株的小鼠心脏的神经元特征与未感染小鼠的对照心脏的神经元特征进行了比较。通过显微解剖分离出的小鼠心房整装标本，用染色法显示具有NADH-黄递酶活性的神经元。由对供体小鼠感染状况不知情的显微镜观察者进行计数，结果显示，急性感染小鼠心房中的此类神经元比对照心脏心房中的神经元显著减少（38%）。感染小鼠的神经节分布也不规则，在轻度退化或形态正常的神经节旁边发现严重受损的神经节。虽然神经节包含小、中、大神经元，但克氏锥虫造成的明显破坏仅限于大神经元。由于慢性感染小鼠心脏标本中的神经元计数比对照心脏低32%，随着小鼠急性感染发展到慢性阶段，心脏神经元似乎没有进一步损失。
