Ischemic myocardium was produced by occluding the left circumflex coronary artery in anesthetized dogs. Autolyzed myocardium was produced by incubating transmural samples of canine left ventricle at 37 degrees C. Tissue pH was recorded continuously in each model using a microcombination pH electrode impaled into the midmyocardium. The activities of the five mitochondrial inner membrane enzyme complexes of electron transport and coupled oxidative phosphorylation were assayed as a function of time of ischemia or autolysis. While the activities of complex II (succinate-CoQ reductase) and IV (cytochrome c oxidase) were completely stable, that of complex I (NADH-CoQ reductase) decreased markedly, but largely only after 20 min of ischemia or autolysis. At 20 min and beyond, the decrease in the activity of complex I paralleled closely the decrease in whole mitochondrial oxygen uptake with NAD-linked substrates in both models. The activity of complex III (CoQH2-c reductase) decreased at a more gradual rate during ischemia or autolysis, and its rate of decrease paralleled that of succinate-supported oxygen uptake. The activity of complex V (oligomycin-sensitive ATPase) decreased most rapidly (by 40% in only 5 min of autolysis) but nearly leveled off beyond 20 min in the two models. A strikingly similar pattern of differential enzyme lability was observed in isolated control mitochondria incubated at lowered pH values. The results demonstrate 1) differential enzyme lability within the mitochondrial inner membrane, 2) a connection between severity of acidosis and the degree of enzyme activity loss, and 3) the usefulness of simple tissue autolysis as an analogue of in situ myocardial ischemia.
A survey of 12 species has revealed that reversible ischemia-induced protonic inhibition of the cardiac muscle mitochondrial adenosine 5'-triphosphatase (ATPase) described by this author earlier (Rouslin, W. J. Biol. Chem. 258: 9657-9661, 1983) occurs only in animals with heart rates lower than approximately 200 beats/min. It was thus fully demonstrable in rabbit, dog, sheep, human, pig, and beef heart mitochondria. In contrast, the in situ ATPase inhibition was completely absent in six smaller species capable of heart rates of approximately 300 or more beats/min. These were chicken, pigeon, guinea pig, rat, hamster, and mouse. Analyses of the cardiac muscle mitochondria of 9 of the 12 species studied showed them to contain normal levels of mitochondrial ATPase inhibitor; the three smallest species, rat, hamster, and mouse contained only very low levels of inhibitor. Thus, although chicken, pigeon, and guinea pig heart mitochondria contained normal levels of ATPase inhibitor, they (like the rat, hamster, and mouse) showed no in situ ischemia-induced ATPase inhibition. This and other observations suggest that the lack of in situ ATPase inhibition in hearts capable of 300 or more beats/min may be due to the presence of either an in situ nonfunctional ATPase inhibitor protein or to an in situ uninhibitable form of the mitochondrial ATPase in the faster-paced hearts. Alternatively, the mitochondria of the fast-paced hearts may be insulated somehow against the cytosolic acidosis which develops during ischemia and which triggers the ATPase inhibition in the slow heart-rate hearts. In the faster paced hearts, ATP hydrolysis does not appear to be regulated by inhibitor binding to the ATPase under nonenergizing conditions.
The perfusion of canine cardiac muscle with 10 microM oligomycin produced a nearly 90% slowing of the net rate of tissue ATP depletion from 0.200 to 0.025 mumol X min-1 X g wet wt-1 of tissue during a subsequent myocardial autolytic interval during which tissue pH was held constant. Moreover, lowering the tissue pH during the autolytic process by 0.6 unit from approximately 6.8 to approximately 6.2 produced a nearly 60% slowing of the net rate of tissue ATP depletion from 0.200 to 0.087 mumol X min-1 X g wet wt-1. The pH dependence of the net rate of tissue ATP depletion (by an oligomycin-sensitive process) was that predicted from the mitochondrial ATPase pH-inhibition profiles reported earlier (J. Biol. Chem. 258: 9657-9661, 1983). When taken together with our observation that the mitochondrial ATPase comprises approximately 90% of the total of all of the ATP hydrolyzing activities present in cardiac muscle cells, data reported here suggest that the protonic inhibition of the mitochondrial ATPase plays a major role in regulating the rate of tissue ATP depletion during myocardial ischemia.
In the present study, isolated dog and rat hearts were perfused in the Langendorff mode with Krebs bicarbonate buffer in the absence and presence of 10(-5) M oligomycin. The perfusion protocols employed allowed tissue pH to drop during subsequent ischemic incubations essentially as it would in blood-perfused hearts. Tissue pH, ATP, lactate, and mitochondrial respiratory function were measured during the course of subsequent zero-flow ischemic incubations. The adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase) activities attributable to both mitochondrial and nonmitochondrial ATPases in sonicated heart homogenates and the actomyosin ATPase in isolated cardiac myofibrils were measured in both species. Consistent with earlier results with a different model in which tissue pH was buffered during the ischemic incubations [W. Rouslin, J. L. Erickson, and R. J. Solaro. Am. J. Physiol. 250 (Heart Circ. Physiol. 19): H503-H508, 1986], the inhibition of the mitochondrial ATPase in situ by oligomycin markedly slowed both tissue ATP depletion and the loss of mitochondrial function during ischemia in the dog. However, oligomycin had only a very small and transient effect on ATP depletion and mitochondrial function in the rat. This was apparently so because of the fivefold higher rate of glycolytic ATP production as well as the nearly threefold higher total nonmitochondrial ATPase activity of ischemic rat compared with ischemic dog heart. These results suggest that although the inhibition of the mitochondrial ATPase makes a major contribution to ATP conservation in ischemic dog heart, it makes only a very small contribution in rat.
Regional myocardial ischemia was produced in anesthetized pigs by occluding the left anterior descending coronary artery. Mitochondria were prepared from both normally perfused and ischemic myocardium after 2 h of occlusion. Mitochondria from the ischemic area exhibited an 89% increase in cholesterol content from 32.7 +/- 1.9 (control) to 62.0 +/- 0.47 (ischemic) nmol/mg protein with no change in either total phospholipid content or in membrane fatty acid composition. This increase in mitochondrial membrane cholesterol was accompanied by an increase in membrane microviscosity as indicated by increased fluorescence polarization using the fluorescent membrane probe, 1,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-hexatriene. In these same experiments the Arrhenius plot discontinuity temperature of oligomycin-sensitive adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase) activity fell from 20.0 to 14.2 degrees C. Our results suggest that, during the myocardial ischemic process in pigs, there is an intracellular redistribution of free cholesterol that produces a marked increase in mitochondrial membrane cholesterol content. This appears to produce an altered mitochondrial membrane lipid bilayer packing, resulting in increased membrane microviscosity and, possibly, altered inner membrane ATPase function. Intracellular cholesterol redistribution may thus contribute to the cell membrane damage that occurs during the myocardial ischemic process.
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