Myocardial vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) contents of spontaneously hypertensive and Wistar-Kyoto normotensive rats.

As a membrane-associated antioxidant, tissue vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) may help protect heart muscle from irreversible necrosis during myocardial ischemia. The vitamin E content of heart-muscle membrane from the spontaneously hypertensive (SH) rat, an animal model of cardiovascular disease, has been determined and compared to that of the myocardial membranes of the Wistar-Kyoto normotensive (W/K) parent strain. It was found that SH-rat myocardial membranes contained some 3-fold less vitamin E than did cardiac membranes in the normotensive strain. These data demonstrate that SH-rat myocardium is deficient in membrane alpha-tocopherol and, hence, in its lipid-soluble antioxidant capacity with respect to heart muscle of the normotensive animal.