Mlx. Fu, CHARACTERIZATION OF ANTI-HEART M2 MUSCARINIC RECEPTOR ANTIBODIES - A COMBINED CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL-STUDY, Molecular and cellular biochemistry, 164, 1996, pp. 343-347
To elucidate the relationship between autoimmunity and idiopathic dila
ted cardiomyopathy has been one of today's heated topics in the field
of heart research. So far it has been identified that there are a vari
ety of autoantibodies including antireceptor autoantibodies. However,
the role of these autoantibodies in the development of dilated cardiom
yopathy has not been defined. An increasing number of in vitro studies
showed that these autoantibodies had different functions, suggesting
that they may play different roles in the pathogenesis of cardiomyopat
hy. The main purpose of this article is to briefly go through the resu
lts obtained from both clinical and experimental in vitro studies on a
nti-M2 muscarinic receptor antibodies to see where we stand in the und
erstanding of the role of these autoantibodies in the pathogenesis of
idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy.