Induction of peritoneal sepsis increases the susceptibility of isolated hearts to a calcium paradox-mediated injury.

The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that induction of chronic peritoneal sepsis in rats would produce a more severe calcium paradox-mediated myocardial injury in isolated heart preparation than is seen in normal hearts, and that this would be inhibited by sucrose as in normal hearts. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were made septic using 200 mg of cecal material (obtained from a donor rat) suspended in 5 mL of 5% dextrose in sterile water D5 W/kg. In septic animals, the cecal material was injected in the peritoneum, while sham-septic animals received only D5 W/kg (5 mL/kg). A third group consisting of normal rats (no surgery) group was also included. Hearts were harvested from all three groups and were subjected to a calcium paradox-mediated injury in an isolated heart preparation. Hearts were perfused with Krebs-Henseleit (KH) medium and were allowed to stabilize, followed by a perfusion with Ca2+-free KH for 10 min. After this 10-min Ca2+-free KH perfusion, rats were reperfused with KH medium for 60 min. Ca2+-free KH medium was used in control experiments, while sucrose experiments were conducted with the same medium except that 150 mM sucrose replaced 75 mM NaCl. A marked decrease in ATP and phosphocreatine occurred during Ca2+ reperfusion in all hearts in absence of sucrose. In the presence of the disaccharide, no change in high-energy phosphate (HEP) levels was observed in normal hearts, while lower ATP concentrations were seen in sham and septic hearts. Thus, sucrose did not inhibit cellular injury in sham and septic hearts as it did in normal hearts, and this might be due to a smaller HEP availability. Control studies with normal, sham, and septic hearts exhibited cessation of contractions in the absence of Ca2+, and appearance of large amounts of cytosolic protein in the effluent perfusate during Ca2+ reperfusion. With normal hearts, perfusion with sucrose caused a 96% inhibition of the total creatine kinase (CK) release observed in control experiments. With sham hearts, 32% of CK release was inhibited by sucrose, while 68% of the CK release was attributed to stress associated with surgery performed in the sham-septic group. In septic hearts, only 8% of the CK release was inhibited by sucrose, suggesting that more severe myocardial injury occurs when septic hearts are subjected to a calcium paradox as compared to other groups. It is evident that sucrose can inhibit a small fraction of the CK release from septic hearts during the calcium paradox as compared to the large CK loss associated with sham sepsis. We have concluded that induction of sepsis made the heart more susceptible to a calcium paradox-mediated myocardial injury.