Heart Muscle Cells Acutely Infected with Trypanosoma cruzi: Characterization of Electrophysiology and Neurotransmitter Responses

Primary cell cultures of mouse ventricular myocardium were infected with Trypanosoma cruzi , to study the consequences of T. cruzi-muscle cell interaction on the rate of spontaneous contractions, on the responses to norepinephrine, and on action potential parameters. Single cells or small cell groups infected cultures were subjected to pharmacological and electrophysiological experiments. In concentrations ranging from 1 nM to 100 μM norepinephrine exerted positive or negative chronotropic effects mediated by α-adrenergic receptors. A significant number of infected cells (25%) did not respond to the agonist. Two days after infection the cultures exhibited a higher frequency of spontaneous contractions (20%), paralleled by an increase in firing rate and a decrease in the action potential duration without significant changes in maximum diastolic potential and action potential amplitude. A decrease in α-adrenergic receptor-mediated positive chronotropic response to norepinephrine was also observed in 2-day infected cells. Cells made to phagocyte ferritin particles showed an increase in the rate of spontaneous contractions, but no changes in the positive chronotropic response to norepinephrine. In conclusion, these observations show that during acute infection with T. cruzi, there are alterations in automaticity and in the chronotropic responses to norepinephrine, whose mechanisms are related to the process of parasite endocytosis by the cardiac cells.