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Analysis of Microstructure of the Cardiac Conduction System Based on Three-Dimensional Confocal Microscopy

The specialised conducting tissues present in the ventricles are responsible for the fast distribution of the electrical impulse from the atrio-ventricular node to regions in the subendocardial myocardium. Characterisation of anatomical features of the specialised conducting tissues in the ventricle...

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Autores principales: Romero, Daniel, Camara, Oscar, Sachse, Frank, Sebastian, Rafael
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5055359/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27716829
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0164093
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author Romero, Daniel
Camara, Oscar
Sachse, Frank
Sebastian, Rafael
author_facet Romero, Daniel
Camara, Oscar
Sachse, Frank
Sebastian, Rafael
author_sort Romero, Daniel
collection PubMed
description The specialised conducting tissues present in the ventricles are responsible for the fast distribution of the electrical impulse from the atrio-ventricular node to regions in the subendocardial myocardium. Characterisation of anatomical features of the specialised conducting tissues in the ventricles is highly challenging, in particular its most distal section, which is connected to the working myocardium via Purkinje-myocardial junctions. The goal of this work is to characterise the architecture of the distal section of the Purkinje network by differentiating Purkinje cells from surrounding tissue, performing a segmentation of Purkinje fibres at cellular scale, and mathematically describing its morphology and interconnections. Purkinje cells from rabbit hearts were visualised by confocal microscopy using wheat germ agglutinin labelling. A total of 16 3D stacks including labeled Purkinje cells were collected, and semi-automatically segmented. State-of-the-art graph metrics were applied to estimate regional and global features of the Purkinje network complexity. Two types of cell types, tubular and star-like, were characterised from 3D segmentations. The analysis of 3D imaging data confirms the previously suggested presence of two types of Purkinje-myocardium connections, a 2D interconnection sheet and a funnel one, in which the narrow side of a Purkinje fibre connect progressively to muscle fibres. The complex network analysis of interconnected Purkinje cells showed no small-world connectivity or assortativity properties. These results might help building more realistic computational PK systems at high resolution levels including different cell configurations and shapes. Better knowledge on the organisation of the network might help in understanding the effects that several treatments such as radio-frequency ablation might have when the PK system is disrupted locally.
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spelling pubmed-50553592016-10-27 Analysis of Microstructure of the Cardiac Conduction System Based on Three-Dimensional Confocal Microscopy Romero, Daniel Camara, Oscar Sachse, Frank Sebastian, Rafael PLoS One Research Article The specialised conducting tissues present in the ventricles are responsible for the fast distribution of the electrical impulse from the atrio-ventricular node to regions in the subendocardial myocardium. Characterisation of anatomical features of the specialised conducting tissues in the ventricles is highly challenging, in particular its most distal section, which is connected to the working myocardium via Purkinje-myocardial junctions. The goal of this work is to characterise the architecture of the distal section of the Purkinje network by differentiating Purkinje cells from surrounding tissue, performing a segmentation of Purkinje fibres at cellular scale, and mathematically describing its morphology and interconnections. Purkinje cells from rabbit hearts were visualised by confocal microscopy using wheat germ agglutinin labelling. A total of 16 3D stacks including labeled Purkinje cells were collected, and semi-automatically segmented. State-of-the-art graph metrics were applied to estimate regional and global features of the Purkinje network complexity. Two types of cell types, tubular and star-like, were characterised from 3D segmentations. The analysis of 3D imaging data confirms the previously suggested presence of two types of Purkinje-myocardium connections, a 2D interconnection sheet and a funnel one, in which the narrow side of a Purkinje fibre connect progressively to muscle fibres. The complex network analysis of interconnected Purkinje cells showed no small-world connectivity or assortativity properties. These results might help building more realistic computational PK systems at high resolution levels including different cell configurations and shapes. Better knowledge on the organisation of the network might help in understanding the effects that several treatments such as radio-frequency ablation might have when the PK system is disrupted locally. Public Library of Science 2016-10-07 /pmc/articles/PMC5055359/ /pubmed/27716829 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0164093 Text en © 2016 Romero et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Romero, Daniel
Camara, Oscar
Sachse, Frank
Sebastian, Rafael
Analysis of Microstructure of the Cardiac Conduction System Based on Three-Dimensional Confocal Microscopy
title Analysis of Microstructure of the Cardiac Conduction System Based on Three-Dimensional Confocal Microscopy
title_full Analysis of Microstructure of the Cardiac Conduction System Based on Three-Dimensional Confocal Microscopy
title_fullStr Analysis of Microstructure of the Cardiac Conduction System Based on Three-Dimensional Confocal Microscopy
title_full_unstemmed Analysis of Microstructure of the Cardiac Conduction System Based on Three-Dimensional Confocal Microscopy
title_short Analysis of Microstructure of the Cardiac Conduction System Based on Three-Dimensional Confocal Microscopy
title_sort analysis of microstructure of the cardiac conduction system based on three-dimensional confocal microscopy
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5055359/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27716829
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0164093
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