Identificación post-mortem de las lesiones causadas por las variantes de Parvovirus canino tipo 2 en corazón y encéfalo de Canis lupus familiaris

Abstract

Canine parvovirus 2 (CPV-2), the etiological agent of parvoviral hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, considered a subspecies of Protoparvovirus carnivoro 1, generally affects domestic dog puppies (Canis lupus familiaris), but it is not limited to this species or to causing infection in the tissues of the gastrointestinal tract. CPV-2 is considered a pantropic virus capable of infecting any cell that is mitotically active and expresses the transferrin receptor (TfR). It has been reported that cardiac and central nervous system tissues are among the target tissues, so the aim of this study was to identify histopathological lesions in these tissues of dogs naturally infected with CPV-2 variants (2a, 2b, and 2c). To this end, post-mortem samples of the heart and brain from 16 canine cadavers were analyzed using molecular biology assays (PCR and ARMS-PCR) and histopathology. The results showed a higher frequency of viral DNA in the brain (93.7%) than in cardiac tissue (53.3%). In patients, variant 2c predominated, with a detection frequency of 53.3%, followed by 2b (40.3%), and variant 2a was the least frequent (6.6%). Histopathological lesions identified in the brain included endothelial hyperplasia and hypertrophy, vacuolization, perivascular inflammatory infiltrate, and the presence of lymphocytes. In cardiac tissue, it was only possible to visualize myocardial degeneration without acute myocarditis. These findings are consistent with the described pantropic capacity of CPV-2 and its possible causal link to lesions in infected non-intestinal tissues. Finally, this study provides evidence of the possible link between CPV-2 infection and neurological and cardiac dysfunction, reinforcing the importance of multi-organ evaluations of patients affected by parvoviral hemorrhagic gastroenteritis.