Pathogenetic features of morphodensitometric characteristics of cardiomyocytes and marker profile of the left ventricular remodeling in rats with experimental intermittent hypoxia of different duration

Myocardial remodeling is considered as a three-component complex process, including cardiomyocyte hypertrophy, their apoptosis, interstitial and perivascular fibrosis. At the same time, the nature of remodeling and the direction of restructuring in the myocardium depend on the prevalence of one of these processes, the degree of their severity and the impact duration. Therefore, to understand the effect of short- and long-term intermittent hypoxia on the direction of myocardial remodeling and its type, the aim of this study was to determine the pathogenetic features of the morphodensitometric characteristics of cardiomyocytes and the marker profile of left ventricular myocardial remodeling in the rats with experimental intermittent hypoxia durated 15 and 60 days.Material and methods. A total of 30 male Wistar rats aging 6-10 months were used for the experiment and assigned to 3 experimental groups of 10 animals each: control; rats exposed to 15-day hypoxia; rats exposed to 60-day hypoxia. The object of the study was the left ventricular myocardium. The number of nuclei in an image, their average linear size and density (the ratio of the total area of nuclei to the area of the cytoplasm), and the concentration of RNA in the nucleus and cytoplasm were measured in the sections stained by Einarson via morphodensitometric method. An immunofluorescence method was used to study the content of immunoreactive material to markers of remodeling (cardiotrophin-1, type I collagen, titin, annexin V). As a result of the study, it was found that intermittent hypoxia led to a decrease in the number of nuclei in cardiomyocytes in both experimental groups compared to the control. Such changes in the number of nuclei were accompanied by significantly larger nuclear size compared to the control (in rats with 15-day hypoxia by 52.9 %, in rats with 60-day hypoxia - by 153.4 %) and a decrease in the density of nuclei in relation to the cytoplasm by 19.5 % and 21.2 %, respectively. In both groups, a significantly lower control concentration of RNA in the nuclei of cardiomyocytes was found alongside with an increase in their area. Such changes were accompanied by a significantly higher concentration of RNA by 23.2 % in the cytoplasm in case of long-term intermittent hypoxia. The marker profile of remodeling parameters in rats exposed to 15-day hypoxia was characterized by a higher content of cardiotrophin-1 and titin by 11.5 % and 23.1 %, respectively, as compared to the control. Th