Apoptosis in right-ventricle biopsy is not predictive of graft survival

Myocardial dysfunction is common in grafted hearts from brain-dead donors, but the mechanisms involved remain unclear, although apoptosis has been suggested to play an important role. In this study, we investigated the presence of apoptotic myocardial cells in donor hearts as compared to control hearts to determine whether pre-existing apoptosis can predict donor heart dysfunction. Apoptosis was studied by in situ DNA fragmentation assay and by Western Blotting for caspase-3, the pivotal executive caspase of the apoptotic pathway. We show that brain-death induced myocardial apoptosis was not predictive of myocardial dysfunction in transplanted hearts.