Postnatal changes in heart mitochondrial calcium and energy metabolism

The newborn mammalian heart has less functional capacity compared with the adult, yet newborn myocardial mitochondrial respiratory activity is the same or exceeds that of adult. This study was aimed at determining the temporal changes in newborn rabbit heart mitochondrial energy-linked Ca2+ transport during early postnatal development. At birth, substrate-supported Ca2+ uptake is twice that of adult and declines toward adult rates during the first 14 days. Both NADH- and succinate-linked respiration are equivalent to adult values at birth, increase transiently during the first 7 days, and then decline toward adult. Newborn heart mitochondrial preparations exhibit the same membrane potential (delta psi) values during Ca2+ uptake and have comparable rates of Na(+)-induced Ca2+ efflux as adult. Creatine kinase (CK) activity is very low in 1- to 7-day-old newborn mitochondria and increases rapidly toward adult values after 10 days of age. The decreasing rates of Ca2+ uptake do not appear to be related to respiratory activity, membrane potential, or increased cycling of Ca2+ but rather to a direct effect on the mitochondrial Ca2+ uniporter. Preliminary studies indicate changes in mitochondrial membrane phospholipids during early development that may be related to the increasing CK activity and decreasing Ca2+ uptake and respiration. We postulate that mitochondrial membrane lipid changes in early postnatal development may be the causative factor underlying these changes in functional activity.