Ruthenium red affects the contractile apparatus but not sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ release of skinned papillary muscle.

Ruthenium red has been shown to have a positive inotropic effect on isolated perfused hearts. The cellular mechanism of this action is not clear. Ruthenium red is able to block the Ca2+ release channel in isolated sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) vesicle and reconstituted channel preparations. However, the effect of ruthenium red on SR Ca2+ release has not been studied in skinned cardiac muscle preparations. In the present study we investigated the actions of ruthenium red on both the characteristics of force generation by the contractile apparatus and Ca2+ release from the SR in chemically skinned rat papillary muscle. Ruthenium red (2 and 10 microM) significantly increased the Ca2+ sensitivity of the contractile apparatus (decreasing Ca2+ required for the half-maximal response from 1.56 +/- 0.04 microM to 1.46 +/- 0.05 microM) but had no effect on the maximal Ca(2+)-activated force in triton X-100 treated fibers. This result may suggest one explanation for the positive inotropic effect of ruthenium red on the heart. On the other hand, ruthenium red had no significant effect on either caffeine-induced Ca2+ release or Ca(2+)-induced Ca2+ release from the SR in saponin-skinned muscle fibers. Lack of a blocking effect on SR Ca2+ release by ruthenium red in skinned fibers suggests that the SR Ca2+ channels in intact preparations have characteristics that are different from those of either vesicular or reconstituted channel preparations.