Computer simulation of energy metabolism in anoxic perfused rat heart

Abstract

We have modeled the energy metabolism of the perfused rat heart in order to elucidate the interaction of physiological and biochemical control mechanisms. This model which includes glycolysis, the Krebs cycle, and related metabolism, contains 68 submodels of individual enzymes and transport mechanisms including both cytosolic and mitochondrial reactions. The method of model construction, which relies heavily on fitting observed in situ behavior to known algebraic rate laws for isolated enzymes, and its data requirements and necessary assumptions are described. Simulation of a CO-induced anoxic preparation is described in detail. Here glycolysis increases sharply, due to both increased glucose uptake and phosphorylase activation (there is rapid interconversion between a and b forms, both of which are active here); this causes a damped glycolytic oscillation originating with the glycogen-handling enzymes rather than phosphofructokinase. The behavior and physiological consequences of ATPase activity and of a lactate permease which exports lactate to the perfusate are discussed.