Do Tetrapeptides Play a Role in Viral Heart Disease

Observations on virus infections that have a high mortality in man have been accompanied by pathological studies revealing that damage had occurred in essential organs not directly infected by the virus. In their review on the role of viruses in heart disease, Burch and Giles (1972) mentioned the “possible elaboration of toxins” in virus-induced myocardial diseases. Patients who died of smallpox in the 1st week of illness (during the era when this disease was prevalent) showed indications of heart failure, and cardiac complications in Jennerian vaccination have been noted (Baldini and Bani 1979). The idea that a toxic substance is involved in such heart damage has been put forward by various authors in an attempt to explain the phenomenon. Cardiac lesions in patients infected with influenza virus have recently been reported (Panteleeva and Novikov 1980), and experimental myocarditis has been induced in mice by influenza A2 infection (Sakamoto et al. 1981). Varicella-induced myocarditis causing congestive cardiomyopathy has also been described (Thandroyen et al. 1981). Another herpesvirus, cytomegalovirus, has also been shown to induce myocarditis (Wink and Schmitz 1980), and mumps virus infection has been reported to cause a complete heart block (Arita et al. 1981). Thus a number of virus infections can cause myocarditis (for review see Woodruff 1980), and more attention is being given today to investigating the mechanism by which viruses cause heart damage (Lenghaus and Studdert 1980; Heikkila and Karjalainen 1982; Lin 1979).