Cardiac atrial myosin adenosine triphosphatase of animals and humans: distinctive enzymatic properties compared with cardiac ventricular myosin.

Cardiac myosin obtained from atria had a higher Ca2+-activated ATPase activity than did cardiac myosin from ventricles in various species of animals and in humans. The increased specific activity of Ca2+-activated adenosine triphosphatase (ATPase) of atrial myosin appeared to correlate with the level of the activity of ventricular myosin ATPase in the animal, since the same order in ATPase activity, as observed in ventricular myosins from various animals, was noted in atrial myosins. The enzymatic properties of atrial myosin also were characterized by no activation by N-ethylmaleimide, low activating energy, and a lower rate of inactivation at alkaline pH compared with the same properties of ventricular myosin. These findings suggest a difference in the myosin molecule at or near the active site, involving some sulfhydryl groups, between the two types of cardiac myosin. The Mg2+-activated ATPase activity, both in the presence and absence of actin (which is thought to be closely related to the basic contraction mechanism), also was enhanced in atrial myosin. Thus, the ATPase activities of atrial and ventricular myosins were different with special reference to the reaction pathway involving calcium and magnesium ions and appear to account for the difference in the velocity of contraction between the atria and the ventricles.