Histochemical and Biochemical Developmental Studies on the Heart in Pre-natal Non-descript Sheep (Ovis aries)

Background: Being the vital organ of circulatory system, the development of the heart before birth must be studied to safeguard the animal from the incidence of various developmental anomalies. The histochemical and biochemical details of cardiac architecture especially in pre-natal sheep have not yet been reported. Methods: The collected foeti of sheep were divided into three age groups viz. early prenatal (up to 50 days), mid prenatal (51-100 days) and late prenatal (101 to 150 days). The samples of heart were processed by routine paraffin technique and cryo technique and after section cutting, the slides were stained by various histochemical staining methods. Further, fresh pieces of the heart samples were also processed for getting tissue extracts for the biochemical analysis. Result: It was revealed that the PAS activity was observed in the cardiac wall, interatrial septum and interventricular septum in the sheep foeti at all stages of gestation. A variable degree of acid phosphatase activity was noted in the myocardium of heart wall in the sheep foeti at all stages of gestation. The lipid deposition also increased with advancing age in the myocardium of cardiac wall, interatrial septum and interventricular septum in the heart of sheep foeti. The activities of various enzymes like creatine kinase, alkaline phosphatase, serum glutamic-pyruvic transaminase and serum glutamic-oxaloacetic transaminase were high in left ventricle than the right ventricle in the heart of sheep foeti. Certain protein bands of specific molecular weight appeared in the ventricular tissue at specific age of gestation in addition to a group of common proteins which appeared in ventricular tissue of sheep foeti in all age groups under study.