Spatial Distribution of Actin and Mechanical Cycle of Myosin are Different in Right and Left Ventricles of Healthy Mouse Hearts

Abstract

The contraction of the right ventricle (RV) expels blood into the pulmonary circulation, and the contraction of the left ventricle (LV) pumps blood into the systemic circulation through the aorta. The respective afterloads imposed on the LV and RV by aortic and pulmonary artery pressures create very different mechanical requirements for the two ventricles. Indeed, differences have been observed in the contractile performance between left and right ventricular myocytes in muscle growth, in dilated cardiomyopathy, in congestive heart failure, and in energy usage and speed of contraction at light loads in healthy hearts. In spite of these functional differences, it is commonly believed that the right and left ventricular muscles are identical because there were no differences in stress development, twitch duration, work performance and power among the RV and LV in dogs. This report shows that on a mesoscopic scale (when only a few molecules are studied (here 3-6 molecules of actin in ex-vivo ventricular myofibrils), the two ventricles in rigor differ in the degree of orientational disorder of actin within thin filaments, and during contraction they differ in the kinetics of the cross-bridge cycle.