Abstract 2188: Imbalance In The Mmp timp-system And Myocardial Fibrosis In Patients With Inflammatory Cardiomyopathy

Introduction: Inflammation and/or viral infection are both relevant for extracellular matrix remodeling. Therefore the effects of myocardial inflammation on ECM remodeling are analyzed in this study. # Methods and results: Endomyocardial biopsies were obtained from 20 patients with established DCM (2.11±0.44 CD3 cells/mm 2 ) and 29 DCMi patients (18.91±6.41 CD3 cells/mm 2 ) comparable in age (51.45±3.15 vs. 48.48±2.39 years), LVEDD (72.7±2.2 vs. 69.76±1.06mm) and EF (26±2.99 vs. 25.86±2.0%). Total collagen content was quantified by picosiriusredstaining while the MMP2, MMP3 and TIMP1 expression was evaluated by immunohistochemistry. The MMP1, MMP3 and TIMP1 and ICTP expression in the serum was quantified by Elisa. and levels of IL6 and IL8 were measured by BioPlexAssays. Furthermore various cytokines and proteases were evaluated by real-time-PCR. In DCMi patients both CD3-lymphocyte infiltration (8.95fold, pP P P P P Conclusion: Myocardial inflammation in patients with DCMi leads to an imbalance in the MMP/TIMP-system, which attributes to the development of myocardial fibrosis.