Different mechanism of myocardial nucleotide breakdown during normothermic and hypothermic ischemia

Mechanisms of nucleotide breakdown in the heart were studied extensively under normothermic conditions and the view that low temperature simply slow down to the same extent all processes involved is common. However, it is possible that low temperature may exert different effect on catabolic enzymes or membrane transport systems. This problem is of clinical relevance especially during heart transplantation when the temperature during ischemia lasting up to four hours is maintained at 4°C. The aim of this study was to evaluate the differences in the mechanism of nucleotide breakdown during normothermic unprotected ischemia and during hypothermic ischemia following cardioplegic arrest.