Effects of ischemia and pharmacological treatment on subcellular fractions from neonatal rat brain

The effects of complete ischemia and of in vivo pharmacological treatment with trimetazidine were studied on some enzymatic activities related to energy transduction: lactate dehydrogenase for anaerobic glycolysis; citrate synthase and malate dehydrogenase for the Krebs' cycle; total NADH-cytochrome c reductase and cytochrome oxidase for the electron transport chain; glutamate dehydrogenase for amino acid metabolism and acetylcholine esterase for acetylcholine metabolism. These enzymatic activities were evaluated in brains of 10-day-old rats, at three different subcellular levels: homogenate in toto, purified mitochondrial fraction, crude, synaptosomal fraction. Complete normothermic post-decapitative ischemia of 30 min duration increased the activity of cytochrome oxidase in the homogenate in toto and increased the activities of citrate synthase and malate dehydrogenase in the purified mitochondrial fraction, the activities of the enzymes evaluated in the crude synaptosomal fraction being unaffected. The i.p. treatment with trimetazidine (at the dose level of 50 mg . kg-1) was without any significant effect on the tested enzymatic activities.