Abstract
The effects of anticarcinogenic antibiotics and psychotherapeutic drugs known to possess cardiotoxic effects were investigated on cellular respiration and beating of isolated and cultured mouse cardiac cells, respectively. Adriamycin (ADM) and antimycin A (AMA) as the antibiotics and chlorpromazine (CPZ), thioridazine (THZ) and imipramine (IMP) as the psychotherapeutic drugs were used in the present study. AMA inhibited the cellular respiration as well as the spontaneous beating of the cells shortly after the addition of a low concentration. ADM also inhibited the beating in parallel with the cellular respiration in the concentration range of 70-520 μM. The concentrations of psychotherapeutic drugs for the 50% inhibition of the beating were extremely low in comparison with those for cellular respiration in the mouse cardiac cells, which were about 10-times as effective as AMA. These results suggested that ADM is entirely different from psychotherapeutic drugs in a manner of inhibition of beating and respiration and that the beat-inhibition caused by psychotherapeutic drugs could not be due to the inhibition of cellular respiration.
