CHARACTERIZATION OF ANTI-HEART M2 MUSCARINIC RECEPTOR ANTIBODIES - A COMBINED CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL-STUDY

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.