Effect of adaptation to intermittent normobaric hypoxia on the ultrastructure of cardiac myocytes in pregnant rats

A comparative ultrastructural study of organelles involved in supplying cardiac myocytes with energy (nucleus, mitochondria, microbodies, and lysosomes) in pregnant rats that had been exposed to intermittent normobaric hypoxia and in rats not so exposed showed no significant differences between these two groups of animals. In both groups, glycogen granules were present in the nucleus, mitochondria, lysosomes, and microbodies (peroxisomes) of cardiac myocytes, and many of their mitochondria had a dense matrix and appeared hyperplastic. © 1995 Plenum Publishing Corporation.