Background: 99mTc-labeled tetrofosmin is a new myocardial imaging agent that gives stable heart uptake. However, little is known about the mechanism of uptake in heart tissue.
Methods and results: Uptake of 99mTc-labeled tetrofosmin has been examined in isolated adult rat ventricular myocytes. The time course of uptake, efflux rate, and the effect of metabolic and cation channel inhibitors have been assessed. The subcellular localization of radioactivity in ex vivo rat heart tissue was examined by differential centrifugation of ventricular homogenate. Uptake into rat myocytes was found to be rapid and plateaued at approximately 1.5 pmol/10(6) cells/nmol extracellular Tc-labeled tetrofosmin after 60 minutes of incubation. Uptake was temperature dependent but independent of extracellular Tc-labeled tetrofosmin concentration. Uptake at 30 minutes was inhibited by the metabolic inhibitors iodoacetic acid acid and 2,4-dinitrophenol protein but was not affected by cation channel inhibitors. Cells previously incubated with 99mTc-labeled tetrofosmin and then placed into fresh medium were found to have a slow efflux of activity; after 1 hour, 65% of activity was still cell associated. The localization of radioactivity in subcellular fractions indicated that the majority of activity was recovered with the cytosol. However, examination of the distribution of two mitochondrial enzymes indicated that this may have been artifactual. Use of carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenyl-hydrazone or oligomycin to perturb mitochondrial membrane potential decreased or increased recovery in the mitochondrial fraction, respectively.
Conclusions: 99mTc-labeled tetrofosmin uptake by myocytes is by a metabolism-dependent process that does not involve cation channel transport. The most likely mechanism for this is by potential driven diffusion of the lipophilic cation across the sarcolemmal and mitochondrial membranes.