Preliminary study of the expression of connective tissue growth factor in papillary muscles of the patients with rheumatic heart disease

To investigate the expression and the effect of connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) on rheumatic myocardial fibrosis of rheumatic heart disease (RHD).The papillary muscles samples were obtained from patients with RHD during mitral valve replacement.The expression of TGF-β1, CTGF mRNA and CTGF protein were detected with semiquantitative RT-PCR technique and immunohistochemistry technologyin the papillary muscles cell from 41RHD patients and 20 normal papillary muscles samples.The area of myocardial fibrosis was measured by imaging analysis system. SPSS package was used to analyze the relationship between the expression of CTGF and the area of myocardial fibrosis.Compared with normal controls (PU 2.4±0.9), the mean level of CTGF protein expression in the papillary muscles samples of the RHD patients (PU 44.7±6.0) was significantly increased(P<0.01). The expression of CTGF protein in papillary muscles of RHD was positivelycorrelated with the expression of CTGFmRNA (r=0.862, P<0.01) and the area of myocardial fibrosis (r=0.856, P<0.01).Compared with normal controls, CTGF expression in the papillary muscles of the RHD patients is significantly increased, which suggests CTGF may play animportant role in myocardial fibrosis of RHD.