Impact of heart rate on cross-bridge cycling kinetics in failing and non-failing human myocardium.

The force-frequency relationship (FFR) is an important regulatory mechanism that increases the force-generating capacity as well as the contraction and relaxation kinetics in human cardiac muscle as the heart rate increases. In human heart failure, the normally positive FFR often becomes flat, or even negative. The rate of cross-bridge cycling, which has been reported to affect cardiac output, could be potentially dysregulated and contribute to blunted or negative FFR in heart failure. We recently developed and here use a novel method for measuring the rate of tension redevelopment (ktr). This method allows us to obtain an index of the rate of cross-bridge cycling in intact contracting cardiac trabeculae at physiological temperature and assess physiological properties of cardiac muscles while preserving post-translational modifications representative of those that occur in vivo. We observed that trabeculae from failing human hearts indeed exhibit an impaired FFR, and reduced speed of relaxation kinetics. However, stimulation frequencies in the lower spectrum did not majorly affect cross-bridge cycling kinetics in non-failing and failing trabeculae when assessed at maximal activation. Trabeculae from failing human hearts had slightly slower cross-bridge kinetics at 3 Hz, as well as reduced capacity to generate force upon K+ contracture at this frequency. We conclude that cross-bridge kinetics at maximal activation in the prevailing in vivo rates heart rates are not majorly impacted by frequency, and are not majorly impacted by disease.