Mechanisms of ATP conservation during ischemia in slow and fast heart rate hearts

In the present study we compared the quantitatively most important, Pi-activated mechanisms for conserving ATP during ischemia in dog and rat cardiac muscle. Earlier studies by ourselves showed that dog heart, like all slow heart rate mammalian hearts examined, possesses the ability to inhibit its mitochondrial ATPase by binding IF1, the ATPase inhibitor protein, during ischemia. Rat heart, like other fast heart rate mammalian hearts studied, does not. The present study demonstrated that this IF1-mediated ATPase inhibition in ischemic dog heart, as in other slow heart rate hearts, appears to depend on matrix space acidification mediated largely by Pi-H+ symport via the mitochondrial Pi carrier. The present study further confirmed that maximal glycolytic flux rates are five- to sixfold greater in ischemic rat than in ischemic dog heart. Both of these systems are activated by increasing Pi concentration ([Pi]) during ischemia, and both appear to be regulated somewhat differently in dog than in rat heart. Thus intact dog heart mitochondria exhibited a [Pi]-dependent ATPase inhibition at low external pH, whereas rat heart mitochondria did not. The [Pi] required for maximal ATPase inhibition in dog heart mitochondria was approximately 6 mM. Although both dog and rat heart phosphofructokinase were stimulated by Pi, the enzyme in dog heart was maximally activated by approximately 6 mM Pi, whereas the rat heart enzyme required only approximately 3 mM Pi for its maximal stimulation under otherwise identical conditions. The most active nonmitochondrial ATPase in ischemic dog and rat cardiac muscle, the Ca(2+)-activated actomyosin ATPase, accounted for approximately one-half of the total nonmitochondrial ATPase activity in each species.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)