Cellular glutathione and the response of adult rat heart myocytes to oxidant stress

Abstract

Freshly isolated adult rat heart myocytes contain total glutathione and reduced glutathione (GSH) at levels quite comparable to those in intact rat heart. Total glutathione can be depleted from 11 to 1 nmol/mg protein or less by treatment with cyclohex-2-ene-1-one without effect on either cellular ATP, rod-cell morphology or the integrity of the sarcolemma. Glutathione levels and redox state are not altered significantly when the Ca-tolerant, quiescent cells are subjected to a period of anoxia followed by reoxygenation. This oxygen paradox protocol results in irreversible hypercontracture of the contractile elements into an amorphous mass in the bulk of the cells, but little loss of sarcolemmal integrity. When the myocytes are subjected to an externally applied oxidant stress by the addition of either diamide or t-butylhydroperoxide, GSH is rapidly depleted with accumulation of oxidized glutathione (GSSG). On continued aerobic incubation both of these reagents promote a slower depletion of cellular ATP and a parallel hypercontracture. Cells treated with t-butylhydroperoxide, but not those with diamide, also generate increasing amounts of thiobarbituric acid reactive species as an indication of lipid peroxidation and show a parallel loss of sarcolemmal integrity. It is concluded that respiring myocytes and those subjected to the oxygen paradox do not produce oxygen radicals in sufficient amounts to displace the GSH/GSSG redox poise and depletion of myocyte glutathione per se is not detrimental to the short term survival of the cells. In addition, aerobic myocytes subjected to external oxidant stress can be damaged irreversibly by two pathways, a hypercontracture that correlates with depletion of ATP and a loss of sarcolemmal integrity that correlates with lipid peroxidation.