Animal Models and “Omics” Technologies for Identification of Novel Biomarkers and Drug Targets to Prevent Heart Failure

Figure 1

End-systolic midventricular short axis and long axis MRI frames of healthy and failing hearts from humans and mice. (a) MRI images from a healthy control (Con) and patients with aortic stenosis (HT), myocardial infarction (MI), and idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). (b) MRI images from mice 4 weeks after transaortic constriction (HT), 3 weeks after LAD ligation (LAD), and 6-month-old mice with a cardiac restricted overexpression of MCP-1 (iDCM). A healthy control animal is also shown (Con). Note the increase in size and ventricular mass of HT hearts while increases in heart size after MI and after development of (i) DCM are associated with ventricular thinning. Explanations are given in the text. (c) Electron microscopy pictures show different degrees of sarcomeric degeneration in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (Con versus DCM1 and DCM2; EF < 30%). Human MRI images and electron micrographs were kindly provided by Professor Georg Bachmann and by Dr. Viktoria Polyakova, respectively. Mouse MRI images are adapted and modified from the “Venia legendi” work of J. Pöling.

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