Valeria Righi1,2, Caterina Constantinou,
1,3, Dionyssios Mintzopoulos1,2, Nadeem Khan4,
Sriram P. Mupparaju4, Harold M. Swartz4, Hazel H. Szeto5,
Ronald G. Tompkins6, Laurence G. Rahme3, A Aria Tzika1,2
1NMR Surgical Laboratory, Department of
Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Shriners Burns Institute, Harvard
Medical School, Boston, MA, United States; 2Department of
Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Athinoula
A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Boston, MA, United States; 3Molecular
Surgery Laboratory, Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and
Shriners Burns Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States; 4EPR
Center for Viable Systems, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Dartmouth
Medical School, Hanover, NH, United States; 5Department of
Pharmacology, Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell
University, New York, NY, United States; 6Department of Surgery,
Division of Burn, Massachusetts General Hospital and Shriners Burns
Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
Using
P31 NMR and Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) in vivo, we evaluated the
effects of a novel (Szeto-Schiller) SS-31 peptide on ATP synthesis rate and
redox status, respectively in a clinically relevant burn trauma model. Our
results showed that SS-31 peptide induces ATP synthesis rate and causes
recovery of the mitochondrial redox status at 6 hours after burn. Thus, EPR,
can be used to complement NMR in investigating, and even validating novel
mitochondrial agents for burn trauma and a variety of pathologies (i.e.,
stroke, heart failure, diabetes, degenerative disorders, trauma, cancer)
associated with mitochondrial dysfunction, including normal aging.