A reproducible model of cardiac hypertrophy in rats. Problems and obstacles we faced.

Aim: To develop a reproducible model of significant left ventricular hypertrophy in order to study the role played by the tumor suppressor protein 53 (P53) in the mechanisms of cardiac hypertrophy, the cross-talk with the other factors and the connection between expression and activity of P53, cardiac myocyte apoptosis and heart hypertrophy; to discuss the problems and obstacles we faced.

Methods: Male Wistar rats were used in the experiments. Left ventricular hypertrophy was induced by banding the abdominal aorta.