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Morphological variations of the conduction system in the atrioventricular zone and its clinical relationship in different species

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Abstract

Atrioventricular node is responsible for delaying the passage of the electrical impulse to ventricles in order to protect them from fast depolarizations coming from the atria. The importance of this study is to identify the morphological variations of the components of atrioventricular zone that affect the conduction system and its clinical relationship in different species of mammals. We analyzed ten human hearts, nine from horses, eight from pigs, and five from dogs without a clinical history of cardiac pathologies. Histological section thickness of 5 μm were obtained with a microtome and stained with hematoxylin–eosin and Masson's trichrome. We observed both an increase in collagen fibers and a decrease in the size of P cells (nodal pacemaker cells) within the atrioventricular node in dogs, horses and pigs in cases that presented cartilage in fibrous body. The percentage of fundamental substance in atrioventricular node was significantly higher in dogs and the percentage of collagen fibers was higher in pigs, both than in humans. The presence of cartilaginous metaplasia in cardiac fibrous skeleton from different species decreases the size of atrioventricular node and its cells and increases the percentage of collagen fibers within the node, which can reduce the transmission of the electrical impulse to ventricles and therefore predispose to the presentation of ventricular arrhythmias. Morphometric analysis has allowed us to objectively quantify each of the components of AV node and compare them in the different species.

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Abbreviations

CCS:

Cardiac conduction system

AV:

Atrioventricular

AVF:

Atrioventricular fascicle

CFS:

Cardiac fibrous skeleton

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the Colombian Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, the small animals veterinary clinics and the Vijagual Meat and Refrigerating Plant in the city of Bucaramanga, Colombia for the collection and donation of specimens for this research. We thank Dr. Hernando Yesid Estupiñan Velasquez for his collaboration in the iconographic design.

Funding

This work was supported by the “Instituto de Salud Carlos III” and co-funded by “FEDER (Grant Nos. PI14/00271, pie15/00013) and by the “Generalitat Valenciana” (Grant No. PROMETEO2013/007), Spain.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, 1st floor, Universitat de Valencia, Av. de Blasco Ibáñez, 15, 46010, Valencia, Spain

    Fabián Gómez-Torres & Amparo Ruíz-Sauri

  2. Department of Basic Sciences, School of Medicine, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Cra 32 # 29–31, 68002, Bucaramanga, Colombia

    Fabián Gómez-Torres & Luis Ballesteros-Acuña

  3. INCLIVA Biomedical Research Institute, Av. de Blasco Ibáñez, 17, 46010, Valencia, Spain

    Amparo Ruíz-Sauri

Authors
  1. Fabián Gómez-Torres
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  2. Luis Ballesteros-Acuña
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  3. Amparo Ruíz-Sauri
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by FG-T, LB-A and AR-S. The first draft of the manuscript was written by FG-T and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Amparo Ruíz-Sauri.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical clearance

The procedures were in accordance with Ethics Committee of Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia (minute 014-2018) and complied with the Resolution 008430 of 1993, Decree 2164 of 1992 and Law 10 of 1990 of the Ministry of Health of Colombia and the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki (1964) and all subsequent revisions. In addition, this study complies with Law 84 of 1989 in the national context, which corresponds to the "National Statute for the Protection of Animals", in Chapter VI of the use of animals in experiments and research.

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Gómez-Torres, F., Ballesteros-Acuña, L. & Ruíz-Sauri, A. Morphological variations of the conduction system in the atrioventricular zone and its clinical relationship in different species. Anat Sci Int 96, 212–220 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12565-020-00575-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12565-020-00575-7

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