Acidosis in cardiac muscle is associated with a decrease in developed force. We hypothesized that slow skeletal troponin I (ssTnI), which is expressed in neonatal hearts, is responsible for the observed decreased response to acidic conditions. To test this hypothesis directly, we used adult transgenic (TG) mice that express ssTnI in the heart. Cardiac TnI (cTnI) was completely replaced by ssTnI either with a FLAG epitope introduced into the N‐terminus (TG‐ssTnI*) or without the epitope (TG‐ssTnI) in these mice. TG mice that express cTnI were also generated as a control TG line (TG‐cTnI). Non‐transgenic (NTG) littermates were used as controls.

We measured the force‐calcium relationship in all four groups at pH 7.0 and pH 6.5 in detergent‐extracted fibre bundles prepared from left ventricular papillary muscles. The force‐calcium relationship was identical in fibre bundles from NTG and TG‐cTnI mouse hearts, therefore NTG mice served as controls for TG‐ssTnI* and TG‐ssTnI mice. Compared to NTG controls, the force generated by fibre bundles from TG mice expressing ssTnI was more sensitive to Ca²⁺. The shift in EC₅₀ (the concentration of Ca²⁺ at which half‐maximal force is generated) caused by acidic pH was significantly smaller in fibre bundles isolated from TG hearts compared to those from NTG hearts. However, there was no difference in the force‐calcium relationship between hearts from the TG‐ssTnI* and TG‐ssTnI groups.

We also isolated papillary muscles from the right ventricle of NTG and TG mouse hearts expressing ssTnI and measured isometric force at extracellular pH 7.33 and pH 6.75. At acidic pH, after an initial decline, twitch force recovered to 60 ± 3 % (n= 7) in NTG papillary muscles, 98 ± 2 % (n= 5) in muscles from TG‐ssTnI* and 96 ± 3 % (n= 7) in muscles from TG‐ssTnI hearts. Our results indicate that TnI isoform composition plays a crucial role in the determination of myocardial force sensitivity to acidosis.