Monitoring of mitochondrial membrane potential in isolated perfused rat heart

Optical methods were tested for measuring the membrane potential changes of mitochondria in isolated perfused rat hearts. Safranin was found to be rapidly taken up by the Langendorff-perfused heart, and after loading with the dye there was practically no washout of the stain during perfusion with Krebs-Ringer bicarbonate solution. Staining with safranin induced the appearance of an intense absorption band in the reflectance spectrum of the heart, but the absorbance spectrum changes were not useful for monitoring the mitochondrial membrane potential changes because of interference by endogenous hemoproteins. The fluorescence intensity, however, responded in a manner which indicated that its changes originated from dye attached to the mitochondria. A decrease of the fluorescence was found on energizing the mitochondria by decreasing the cellular energy consumption by arrest induced by 18 mM K+ or by decreasing the beating rate of an electrically paced heart from 5 Hz to the endogenous ventricular frequency of 1.5 Hz. In hearts arrested by Ca2+ depletion, 18 mM K+ did not affect the safranin fluorescence. This was taken to indicate that under these conditions the safranin fluorescence was not sensitive to the plasma membrane potential. The uncoupler carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenylhydrazone induced an intense enhancement of safranin fluorescence in the perfused heart, demonstrating that the probe is sensitive to mitochondrial membrane potential.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)