Troponin I phosphorylation in spontaneously hypertensive rat heart: effect of beta-adrenergic stimulation.

We compared baseline and protein kinase A (PKA)-dependent troponin I (TnI) phosphorylation in 32Pi-labeled left ventricular myocytes from hearts of 26-wk spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and Wistar-Kyoto controls (WKY). TnI phosphorylation was normalized to myosin light chain 2 phosphorylation, which was invariant. There was no difference in baseline TnI phosphorylation in SHR and WKY, but stimulation with isoproterenol, norepinephrine plus prazosin, forskolin, chloroadenosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate, or 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine caused a greater increase in TnI phosphorylation in the SHR than in the WKY. This was observed both in the presence and absence of the phosphatase inhibitor calyculin A; thus the differences in TnI phosphorylation between SHR and WKY are not due to decreased phosphatase activity in the SHR. After stimulation of the beta-adrenergic pathway, phospholamban phosphorylation was not different in SHR and WKY, indicating that the observed differences may be specific for PKA phosphorylation of TnI. The increased PKA-dependent TnI phosphorylation in the SHR resulted in decreased Ca2+ sensitivity of actomyosin adenosinetriphosphatase activity as compared with the WKY. We conclude that increased PKA-dependent TnI phosphorylation in the SHR may contribute to the impaired response to sympathetic stimulation.