Fig. 1

Doxorubicin induced cardiomyopathy: Gross-morphology and cardiac muscle cell striations. Depicted in panels A-C are the clinicopathological features of doxorubicin-treated rats. Panel A: Body weight of doxorubicin-treated rats. When compared to controls, doxorubicin treatment caused a clear dose-related and highly significant reduction in body weights. The difference between treatments is also significant. Panel B: Heart weight of doxorubicin-treated rats. When compared to controls, the reduction in heart weight is highly significant and dose-related. The difference between treatments is also significant. Panel C: Serum creatinine kinase activity. Myocardial injury caused a clear dose-related and extraordinary increase in CK activity. The difference between treatments is also significant. Panel D line 1 and 2: Gross morphology of the heart. Depicted are the complete longitudinal (line 1) and cross sections (line 2) of the hearts of control and doxorubicin-treated animals. The hearts of control animals in the longitudinal section (line 1, control) display an ovally contracted chambers in the cross section (line 2, control). Conversely, atrophied hearts of treated animals are characterized by circular and semicircular dilatative shapes and a decreased chamber wall thickness of the left and right ventricules. Note the dose-related changes with a cylindrical and even balloon-like dilated appearance (line 2, 10 and 20 mg/kg). Panel D line 3 and 4: Crossmon and Heidenhain’s iron hematoxylin stain. Line 3 (Crossmon stain): With controls, the sarcomers of cardiomyocytes are intact, and the cardiac muscle cell striations are regular. Doxorubicin treatment caused marked damage of the myofilaments with the loss of cross-striations. Severely harmed cardiomyocytes are hallmarked by an intense orange-red stained and lumpy changed cytoplasm (Crossmon stain, line 3, 20 mg/kg). Depicted in line 3, row 2 is an H&E stained section of a 10 mg/kg treated animal. Note the focal vacuolar degeneration of cardiomyocytes and otherwise early band like aggregates of their cytoplasm. Line 4 (Heidenhain’s iron hematoxylin stain): With controls, the cross striations of cardiac muscle cells are well preserved and are stained in black. Following doxorubicin treatment (10 mg/kg and 20 mg/kg) the cross striation of cardiac muscle cells is lost and the fibers are transformed into irregular aggregates