Postmortem changes in cyclic nucleotides (cAMP and cGMP) in a rat heart

• Published in: Japanese Journal of Pharmacology 1989, Vol.49 (suppl), p.254-254
• Main Authors: Ikarashi, Yasushi, Maruyama, Yuji, Way, E.Leong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0021-5198; 1347-3506
• DOI: 10.1016/S0021-5198(19)56599-4

During the course of our study on the functional role of cyclic nucleotides, we have determined postmortem changes in cAMP and cGMP. A microwave irradiation technique for inactivation on enzymes concerned with the compounds has not been established yet for heart tissue, so the rat was sacrificed by decapitation and the heart was removed from the body and left at room temperature at 23℃. Then the compounds were extracted and measured following a pre-determined time-lapse sequence. Individual data were analyzed in reference to a compartment model. The degradative groups of tendency of both the compounds showed a typical diphasic pattern：namely, half lives in minutes were 16.8 and 7.06 for cAMP and cGMP in the alpha-phase and 1044 and 212 in the beta-phase, respectinely. Also, the degradation rates (pmol/g/min) were 1737 and 846 for cAMP and cGMP in the alpha-phase and 46.2 and 8.84 in the beta-phase, respectively. A significant decrease after decapitation was found after 60 min for cAMP and 15 min for cGMP. The results showed that the velocity of the postmortem changes in the compounds in the heart were significantly slower than the four minutes for cAMP and two minutes for cGMP in the brain.