During recent years methods of operative treatment of heart disease have been used on a wide scale. This gives urgent importance to the development of therapeutic measures promoting the rapid healing of penetrating wounds of the heart and, in particular, of surgical wounds of the myocardium.S. V. Andreev and co-workers previously suggested that a group of therapeutic measures including administration of vitamins of the B group, nucleic acids, methionine, and ATP be used to stimulate repair processes in the myocardium [1][2][3][4]8]. Yu. V. Bukin has shown [5-7] that in experimental myocardial infarction the use of this therapeutic complex increases the rate of protein biosynthesis in the zone of injury and stimulates the formation de novo of the apoenzyme aspartate-glutamate transaminase (AGT).In the present investigation a dynamic study was made of the effect of this therapeutic complex on the processes of regeneration of the myocardium in rabbits with penetrating wounds of the heart.
EXPERIMENTAL METHODExperiments were conducted on 95 chinchilla rabbits of both sexes, weighing from 2.0 to 3.g kg. The operation was performed in aseptic conditions under ether anesthesia. The thorax was opened and the sternum split into two bony laminae. An accurately measured penetrating puncture or incised wound, g x 0.5 mm in extent, was created in the region of the upper third of tl~e anterior wall of the left ventricle by means of a specially adapted ophthalmic knife. The therapeutic complex, consisting of methionine (50 rag), ATP (10 rag), vitamin B s (1-10 rag), vitamin B12 (80 ~tg), RNA (30 rag), and DNA (10 mg), was given daily to the rabbits, starting on the day of the operation, in aqueous solution by subcutaneous injection. The remaining rabbits acted as controls. The animals were sacrificed on the 1st, 5th, 10th, and 30th days after the operation.For the histological and cytochemical investigations the material was fixed by intra-arterial injection of Shabadash's neutral fixing agent into the rabbits, to enter the contracted heart [9]. Sections 7 /J thick were stained with hematoxylin-eosin and picrofuchsin. Histological preparations were studied in transmitted and polarized light and in the phase-contrast microscope. Nucleic acids were detected by Brachet's method [10] and glycogen was demonstrated by Shabadash's histochemical method [9]. To identify the nucleic acids and glycogen, some sections were preliminarily treated with ribonuclease and diastase,The AGT activity was determined by the method of Umbreit and co-workers [12]. The conditions of incubation of the myocardial tissue with the substrate mixture, containing 80 ~tg of phosphopyridoxal hydrochloride, were described previously by the authors [6]. The protein content of the tissue was determined by Lowry's method [11]. The results of control experiments showed that the protein content and the AGT activity varied only very slightly in different parts of the anterior wall of the left ventricle in normal conditions, within limits close to the limits of accuracy...
