Marcus T Hock, Abigail E Teitgen, Kimberly J McCabe, Sophia P Hirakis, Gary A Huber, Michael Regnier, Rommie E Amaro, J Andrew McCammon, Andrew D McCulloch
2'-Deoxy-ATP (dATP), a naturally occurring near analog of ATP, is a well-documented myosin activator that has been shown to increase contractile force, improve pump function, and enhance lusitropy in the heart. Calcium transients in cardiomyocytes with elevated levels of dATP show faster calcium decay compared with cardiomyocytes with basal levels of dATP, but the mechanisms behind this are unknown. Here, we design and utilize a multiscale computational modeling framework to test the hypothesis that dATP acts on the sarcoendoplasmic reticulum calcium-ATPase (SERCA) pump to accelerate calcium re-uptake into the sarcoplasmic reticulum during cardiac relaxation...
August 21, 2023: Journal of Applied Physics