| Abstract: | Menadione restores the rotenone-inhibited respiration of diaphragm muscle pieces in approximately the same degree as the respiration of heart mitochondria, i.e., to 30-40%. The respiration of heart mitochondria induced by 2-5 microM menadione (after its inhibition by rotenone) is partly coupled with ATP synthesis whose rate is much lower than that of oxidation of NAD-dependent substrates. The effects of menadione and mitochondrial energetics inhibitors on lymphocyte respiration and rhodamine 123 fluorescence in individual lymphocytes and their suspensions were compared. Menadione (2--5 microM) increased the rotenone + oligomycin suppressed delta psi m in lymphocytes. At 5-40 microM menadione did not act as an uncoupler and had little effect on the uncoupled lymphocyte respiration. All these effects were observed at menadione concentrations close to therapeutic ones. Vicasol, a water-soluble analog of menadione, exerted a similar effect. |
