The mitochondrial adenosine 5'-triphosphatase in slow and fast heart rate hearts.

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.