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Mitochondrial function in heart muscle from patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy
D Jarreta1, J Orús, A Barrientos
1Departament de Medicina, Hospital Clinic i Provincial, IDIBAPS, Facultat de Medicina, UB, Spain.
Objective:
To study the mitochondrial respiratory chain enzyme activities in patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDC).
Methods:
Mitochondrial respiratory chain enzyme activities were assessed spectrophotometrically in left ventricular tissue of 17 patients with IDC undergoing cardiac transplantation, as well as in two groups of controls: a group of six patients suffering from ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy (IC) also undergoing cardiac transplantation, and a group of 17 organ donors considered normal from a cardiac point of view. Cytochrome b gene from three IDC patients whose complex III activity was particularly low and from three controls was also sequenced.
Results:
We found that complex III enzymatic activity was lower not only in IDC but also in IC patients when compared with normal controls. When analysing cytochrome b gene we only found neutral polymorphisms previously described.
Conclusions:
In view of such results, we believe that the decrease of respiratory chain complex III activity found in some cases of IDC is a secondary phenomenon, and not due to a primary mitochondrial disease.