The extent of cardiac injury incurred during reperfusion as opposed to that occurring during ischemia is unclear. This study tested the hypothesis that simulated ischemia followed by simulated reperfusion causes significant "reperfusion injury" in isolated chick cardiomyocytes. Cells were exposed to hypoxia, hypercarbic acidosis, hyperkalemia, and substrate deprivation for 1 h followed by 3 h of reperfusion. Irreversible cell membrane injury, measured by propidium iodide uptake, increased from 4% of cells at the end of ischemia to 73% after reperfusion; death occurred in only 17% of cells kept ischemic for 4 h. Lactate dehydrogenase release was consistent with these changes. Lengthening ischemia from 30 to 90 min increased cell injury as expected, but of the total cell death, > 90% occurred during reperfusion. "Chemical hypoxia" composed of cyanide (2.5 mM) plus 2-deoxyglucose augmented injury before reperfusion compared with simulated ischemia. Inhibition of oxygen radical generation by use of metal chelator 1,10-phenanthroline reduced cell death from 73% to 40% after reperfusion (P = 0.001). We conclude that simulated reperfusion significantly augments the cellular membrane damage elicited by simulated ischemia in isolated cardiomyocytes devoid of other factors and suggest that reactive oxygen species, perhaps from the mitochondria, participate in this injury.

We tested the hypothesis that hypertrophy of the human heart is associated with the redistribution of ventricular isomyosins. Human cardiac myosin was isolated from autopsy samples of left ventricular free wall of patients with cardiac hypertrophy and of fetal, young, and adult subjects without heart disease. The following parameters were studied: electrophoretic migration in denaturing and non-denaturing conditions; immunological cross-reactivities with three different types of antibodies; and early phosphate burst size and steady state ATPase activities stimulated by K+-EDTA, Ca++, Mg++, and actin. The antibodies were chosen for their ability to recognize selectively the rat V1 and V3 cardiac isomyosins. The first type was a monoclonal antibody, CCM-52, prepared against embryonic chick cardiac myosin, the second was an anti-beef atrial myosin, and the third was an anti-rat V1 myosin. CCM-52 reacted with a greater affinity with rat V3 than with rat V1, and was a probe of mammalian V3. Anti-beef atrial myosin and anti-rat V1 myosin both recognized specifically beef atrial and rat V1 myosins, and were thus considered as probes of mammalian V1. Under non-denaturing conditions, human myosins migrated as rat V3 isomyosin; under denaturing conditions, no difference was observed in any of the electrophoretic parameters between all samples tested, except for the fetal hearts which contained a fetal type of light chain. The immunological studies indicated that human myosins were composed mostly of a V3 type (HV3), but contained also some V1 isomyosin. A technique was developed to quantify the amount of human VI isomyosin which was found to range from almost 0 to 15% of total myosin, and to vary from one heart to the other, regardless of the origin of the heart. Enzymatic studies showed no significant difference between normal, hypertrophied, and fetal hearts in any of the activities tested. However, there was a significant correlation between Ca++-stimulated ATPase activities and HV1 amount (at 0.05 M KCl, n = 18, r2 equal 0.49, P less than 0.01; at 0.5 M KCl, n = 18, r 2 = 0.5, P less than 0.01). These data demonstrate the heterogeneity of human ventricular myosin, which appears to be composed, as in other mammalian species, of V1 and V3 isoforms of different ATPase activities (V1 greater than V3). However it seems that V1 to V3 shifts do not appear to be of physiological significance in the adaptation of human heart to chronic mechanical overloads.

Fast-twitch tibialis anterior muscle of the rat was subjected to chronic low-frequency (10 Hz, 10 h daily) nerve stimulation in order to investigate the time course of changes in cytochrome-c-oxidase activity, as well as in tissue levels of specific mitochondrially and nuclear-encoded, cytochrome-c-oxidase-subunit mRNAs. Chronic stimulation induced a progressive increase in cytochrome-c-oxidase activity which was threefold elevated after 35 days. A similar increase was recorded for citrate-synthase activity. Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, which was studied as a glycolytic reference enzyme, moderately decreased, as did the tissue level of its corresponding mRNA. There was a parallel increase in the tissue levels of the two cytochrome-c-oxidase-subunit mRNAs over the entire stimulation time course. The extent of increase (stimulated/control) was 2.4 0.3 and 1.8 f 0.2 (means SEM) for the mitochondrial and nuclear subunit mRNAs, respectively. This parallel increase suggested a coordinate regulation of the two subunits. The increase in cytochrome-c-oxidase activity initially corresponded to the changes at the mRNA level. However, with longer stimulation times (beyond 14 days), the increase in cytochrome-c-oxidase activity clearly exceeded that of the two mRNAs. This divergence was progressive and was interpreted to indicate that the increase in cytochrome-c-oxidase content was brought about not only by changes in the levels of the specific mRNAs, but also by alterations at the level of translation.It is well established that the tissue levels of enzymes involved in energy metabolism are adjusted, in mammalian skeletal muscle, to the functional demands imposed. Thus, increased contractile activity induces elevations in the mitochondrial content and, consequently, in the tissue content of enzymes functioning in aerobic-substrate and end-oxidation [I]. Cytochrome-c oxidase, the terminal enzyme of substrate end-oxidation, is composed of subunits which are derived from both the nuclear and the mitochondrial genomes [2, 31. This raises the question as to the degree to which these two systems are regulated under conditions of increased mitochondrial biogenesis, such as sustained contractile activity. In order to address this question, we have subjected f a ttwitch muscle of the rat to chronic low-frequency stimulation. This protocol has been extensively shown to result in a large and time-dependent increase in mitochondria and mitochondrial enzyme activities [4 -lo]. In order to investigate whether the two genomic systems are coordinately regulated, we have followed the time courses of changes in tissue levels of mRNAs encoding subunits I11 and VIc of cytochrome-c oxidase. Subunit I11 represents a mitochondrially encoded peptide, whereas subunit Vlc is coded for by the nuclear genome [2, 31.The changes in the levels of these two mRNAs were related to alterations in the tissue level of cytochrome-c-oxidase activity which was used as a measure of the holoenzyme's tissue concentration. In addition to addressing the...

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The M-CAT binding factor transcription enhancer factor 1 (TEF-1) has been implicated in the regulation of several cardiac and skeletal muscle genes. Previously, we identified an E-box-M-CAT hybrid (EM) motif that is responsible for the basal and cyclic AMP-inducible expression of the rat cardiac ␣-myosin heavy chain (␣-MHC) gene in cardiac myocytes. In this study, we report that two factors, TEF-1 and a basic helix-loop-helix leucine zipper protein, Max, bind to the ␣-MHC EM motif. We also found that Max was a part of the cardiac troponin T M-CAT-TEF-1 complex even when the DNA template did not contain an apparent E-box binding site. In the protein-protein interaction assay, a stable association of Max with TEF-1 was observed when glutathione S-transferase (GST)-TEF-1 or GST-Max was used to pull down in vitro-translated Max or TEF-1, respectively. In addition, Max was coimmunoprecipitated with TEF-1, thus documenting an in vivo TEF-1-Max interaction. In the transient transcription assay, overexpression of either Max or TEF-1 resulted a mild activation of the ␣-MHC-chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) reporter gene at lower concentrations and repression of this gene at higher concentrations. However, when Max and TEF-1 expression plasmids were transfected together, the repression mediated by a single expression plasmid was alleviated and a three-to fourfold transactivation of the ␣-MHC-CAT reporter gene was observed. This effect was abolished once the EM motif in the promoter-reporter construct was mutated, thus suggesting that the synergistic transactivation function of the TEF-1-Max heterotypic complex is mediated through binding of the complex to the EM motif. These results demonstrate a novel association between Max and TEF-1 and indicate a positive cooperation between these two factors in ␣-MHC gene regulation.