MR tagging demonstrates quantitative differences in regional ventricular wall motion in mice, rats, and men

• Published in: American journal of physiology. Heart and circulatory physiology Vol. 291; no. 5; pp. H2515 - H2521
• Main Authors: Liu, Wei, Ashford, Marvin W, Chen, Junjie, Watkins, Mary P, Williams, Todd A, Wickline, Samuel A, Yu, Xin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Physiological Society 01.11.2006
• Subjects: Adolescent; Animals; Child; Differences; Female; Heart; Heart Ventricles - anatomy & histology; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Cine; Male; Mice; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Motion; Myocardial Contraction - physiology; Rats; Rats, Inbred F344; Rodents; Studies; Ventricular Function; Ventricular Function, Left - physiology
• ISSN: 0363-6135; 1522-1539
• DOI: 10.1152/ajpheart.01016.2005

1 Cardiovascular MR Laboratories, Cardiovascular Division, Department of Medicine, and 2 Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri Submitted 23 September 2005 ; accepted in final form 30 May 2006 Rats and genetically manipulated mouse models have played an important role in the exploration of molecular causes of cardiovascular diseases. However, it has not been fully investigated whether mice or rats and humans manifest similar patterns of ventricular wall motion. Although similarities in anatomy and myofiber architecture suggest that fundamental patterns of ventricular wall motion may be similar, the considerable differences in heart size, heart rate, and sarcomeric protein isoforms may yield quantitative differences in ventricular wall mechanics. To further our understanding of the basic mechanisms of myofiber contractile performance, we quantified regional and global indexes of ventricular wall motion in mice, rats, and men using magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. Both regular cine and tagged MR images at apical, midventricular, and basal levels were acquired from six male volunteers, six Fischer 344 rats, and seven C57BL/6 mice. Morphological parameters and ejection fraction were computed directly from cine images. Myocardial twist (rotation angle), torsion (net twist per unit length), circumferential strain, and normalized radial shortening were calculated by homogeneous strain analysis from tagged images. Our data show that ventricular twist was conserved among the three species, leading to a significantly smaller torsion, measured as net twist per unit length, in men. However, both circumferential strain and normalized radial shortening were the largest in male subjects. Although other parameters, such as circumferential-longitudinal shear strain, need to be evaluated, and the causes of these differences in contractile mechanics remain to be elucidated, the preservation of twist appears fundamental to cardiac function and should be considered in studies that extrapolate data from animals to humans. ventricular twist; torsion; regional myocardial wall motion Address for reprint requests and other correspondence: X. Yu, Dept. of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve Univ., Wickenden 427, 10900 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, OH 44106 (e-mail: Xin.Yu{at}case.edu )