Table 3.

Cardiovascular parameters based on echocardiography in dogs experimentally infected with T. cruzi and treated with the DNA vaccine containing genes encoding a trans-sialidase protein (pBCSP), an amastigote-specific glycoprotein (pBCSSP4), or both as a mixture.

Group∗	Left ventricular (LV) diastolic diameter (mm)	Left ventricular (LV) systolic diameter (mm)	Fractional shortening (FS) (%)	Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) (%)	Posterior wall (mm)	Septum (mm)	Left atrium (LA) diameter/aorta root (AR) diameter ratio
Healthy	30.25 ± 3.89	18.46 ± 2.07	42.12 ± 4.98	53.20 ± 3.83	5.86 ± 0.21	6.35 ± 0.21	1.73 ± 0.095
Inf/SS mock-treated	28.33 ± 3.32∗	15.60 ± 1.57∗	44.75 ± 3.97	50.31 ± 6.31	6.81 ± 0.40∗	8.00 ± 1.19∗	2.23 ± 0.19∗
pBCSSP4	30.63 ± 4.88	20.00 ± 4.55	38.33 ± 5.90	50.15 ± 8.99	6.85 ± 0.84∗	7.00 ± 0.94	1.92 ± 0.28
pBCSP	32.45 ± 5.89	20.00 ± 2.92	29.24 ± 3.36	43.25 ± 3.78∗	5.65 ± 0.45	6.30 ± 0.78	2.02 ± 0.18∗
Mixture	35.60 ± 2.74	23.85 ± 4.09	38.37 ± 9.36	49.75 ± 8.66	6.34 ± 0.92	7.08 ± 0.50	1.79 ± 0.40
pBK-CMV	30.18 ± 3.66	17.85 ± 1.57	38.05 ± 6.70	50.50 ± 6.10	6.40 ± 0.49	6.74 ± 0.71	1.78 ± 0.33

^∗Group descriptions are shown in Table 1. Inf = infected. All data are expressed as the means and standard deviations. ^∗Significant difference (P ≤ 0.05) between the treatment groups and the healthy dogs and/or with reference values [80].