Coupled solute fluxes in toad skin

Role of solute drag in intestinal transport

This study presents experiments related to the role of solvent drag and solute drag in the transmembrane movement of nonelectrolytes in a perfused rat intestine preparation. Conditions were chosen to simulate the effects of luminal hyperosmolarity on the permeability of tracer solutes. Data are presented on net water flux, transepithelial potentials, and lumen-to-blood and blood-to-lumen tracer solute movements during control electrolyte perfusion and after making the perfusate hyperosmotic. The results indicate that both solvent drag and solute drag can play significant roles in the transepithelial movement of solute and solute permeabilities in the rat ileum preparation. It is suggested that the potential roles of solvent drag and solute drag should be accounted for or considered during the characterization of the mechanisms of biological membrane function.

Anomalous calcium secretion in rat ileum: role of paracellular pathway

The mechanism of apparent calcium secretion by unstripped rat ileum in vitro has been investigated using mannitol and polyethylene glycol (mol wt 900) as markers for extracellular transepithelial flux. In the absence of electrochemical gradients between the mucosal and serosal bathing media in a modified Ussing chamber, net fluxes of both mannitol and polyethylene glycol were observed from serosa to mucosa in the presence of 11 mM D-glucose. Mucosal-to-serosal calcium flux reveals a significant cellular component, but serosal-to-mucosal calcium permeability is a linear function of mannitol permeability, suggesting an exclusively extracellular route. For the mucosal-to-serosal fluxes, inhibition of calcium flux by 1 mM N-ethylmaleimide results in a calcium-to-mannitol permeability ratio indistinguishable from that measured for serosal-to-mucosal flux. This evidence suggests that the apparent calcium secretion observed at 10 mM medium calcium is not the result of a cellular secretory mechanism. It is proposed that a hydrostatic driving force generated internal to the tissue but external to the cells results in net calcium secretion at calcium conentrations that saturate the cellular absorptive mechanism.

Influence of membrane heterogeneity on kinetics of nonelectrolyte tracer flows

In a composite membrane with heterogeneous channels, prevention of net volume flow with hydrostatic pressure differences and/or impermeant osmotic solutes may induce positive isotope interaction (coupling of isotope flows) consequent to circulation of volume flow. The permeability coefficient for net flow will then exceen the tracer permeability coefficient. A permeant osmotic solute will induce either positive or negative isotope interaction, according to whether membrane heterogeneity is more marked for the test solute or the osmotic solute, respectively. Thus membrane heterogeneity may account for phenomena commonly attributed to "single file diffusion". For sufficiently small flows the general flux ratio relationship for homogeneous membranes will continue to apply.

A new model for regulation of sodium transport in high resistance epithelia

A new three barrier, four compartment model for sodium transport in high resistance urinary epithelia is presented. This model provides a unified and simplified mechanistic explanation for sodium transport and its quantitative regulation. Sodium enters the epithelial cell by passive diffusion. Active extrusion occurs across the lateral cell membrane into the lateral intercellular space (LICS). Sodium movement from the LICS into the serosal compartment is not free and unobstructed as in the models for low resistance epithelia, but rather occurs through a regulatory channel of the LICS passing through desmosomes and the basilar slit. The exact configuration of this regulatory channel controls the rate of sodium movement from the LICS into the serosal compartment. Thus, the configuration of the regulatory channel controls the afterload on the sodium pump and thus ultimately controls the rate of transepithelial sodium transport. Antidiuretic hormone could act by increasing the effective width of this regulatory channel by contraction of intracellular microtubules or microfilaments. Present theories for regulation of transepithelial sodium transport in high resistance epithelia invoke a regulatory barrier at the apical cell membrane or at the active sodium pump located in the basolateral cell membrane. The hypothetical model presented here invokes a new alternative: regulation of the active pump rate by the sodium concentration in the LICS serving as an afterload on the pump; sodium escape from the LICS into the serosal compartment thus becomes the regulatory step for transepithelial transport.

Amide transport channels across toad urinary bladder

Urea and other small amides cross the toad urinary bladder by a vasopressinsensitive pathway which is independent of osmotic water flow. Amide transport has characteristics of facilitated transport: saturation, mutual inhibition between amides, and selective depression by agents such as phloretin. The present studies were designed to distinguish among several types of transport including (1) movement through a fixed selective membrane channel and (2) movement via a mobile carrier. The former would be characterized by co-transport (acceleration of labeled amide flow in the direction of net flow of unlabeled amide), the latter by counter-transport (acceleration of labeled amide flow in the opposite direction). Mucosal to serosal (M leads to S) and serosal to mucosal (S leads to M) permeabilities of labeled amides were determined in paired bladders. Unlabeled methylurea, a particularly potent inhibitor of amide movement, was added to either the M or S bath, while osmotic water flow was eliminated by addition of ethylene glycol and ethanol could not be demonstrated. Methylurea did not alter water permeability or transmembrane electrical resistance. The demonstration of co-transport is consistent with the presence of ADH-sensitive amide-selective channels rather than a mobile carrier.

Solute flux coupling in a homopore membrane

Our previous studies on solute drag on frog skin and synthetic heteropore membranes have been extended to a synthetic homopore membrane. The 150-A radius pores of this membrane are formed by irradiation and etching of polycarbonate films. The membrane is 6-microm thick and it has 6 x 10(8) pores cm(-2). In this study, sucrose has been used as the driver solute with bulk flow blocked by hydrostatic pressure. As before on heteroporous membranes, the transmembrane asymmetry of tracer solute is dependent on the concentration of the driver solute. Tracer sucrose shows no solute drag while maltotriose shows appreciable solute drag at 1.5 M sucrose. With tracer inulin and dextran, solute drag is detectable at 0.5 M sucrose. These results are in keeping with the previous findings on heteropore membranes. Transmembrane solute drag is the result of kinetic and frictional interaction of the driver and tracer solutes as the driver flows down its concentration gradient. The magnitude of the tracer flux asymmetry is also dependent on the size of the transmembrane pores.

Theoretical analysis of net tracer flux due to volume circulation in a membrane with pores of different sizes. Relation to solute drag model

When osmotic pressure across an artificial membrane, produced by a permeable electrically neutral solute on one side of it, is balanced by an external pressure difference so that there is no net volume flow across the membrane, it has been found that there will be a net flux of a second electrically neutral tracer solute, present at equal concentrations on either side of the membrane, in the direction that the "osmotic" solute diffuses. This has been ascribed to solute-solute interaction or drag between the tracer and the osmotic solutes. An alternative model, presented here, considers the membrane to have pores of different sizes. Under general assumptions, this "heteroporous" model will account for both the direction of net tracer flux and the observed linear dependence of unidirectional tracer fluxes on the concentration of the osmotic solute. The expressions for the fluxes of solutes and solvent are mathematically identical under the two models. An inequality is derived which must be valid if the solute interaction model and/or the heteroporous model can account for the data. If the inequality does not hold, then the heteroporous model alone cannot explain the data. It was found that the inequality holds for most published observations except when dextran is the osmotic solute.

A microperfusion study of sucrose movement across the rat proximal tubule during renal vein constriction

Constriction of the renal vein has been shown to inhibit net sodium and water reabsorption by the rat proximal tubule. The mechanism is unknown but might be the result of inhibition of the active sodium pump induced by changes in the interstitial fluid compartment of the kidney, or to enhanced passive backflux of sodium and water into the cell or directly into the tubular lumen. Since passive movement of solutes across epithelial membranes is determined in part by the permeability characteristics of the epithelium, an increase in the permeability of the proximal tubule during venous constriction would suggest that enhanced passive flux is involved in the inhibition of reabsorption. In the present experiments, isolated segments of rat proximal convoluted tubules were microperfused in vivo with saline while the animals were receiving (14)C-labeled sucrose intravenously. In normal control animals, no sucrose was detected in the majority of the collected tubular perfusates. In rats with renal vein constriction (RVC), however, sucrose consistently appeared in the tubular perfusates. The rate of inflow of sucrose correlated with the length of the perfused segment, estimated by fractional water reabsorption. In another group of animals with renal vein constriction, inulin-(14)C was given intravenously and the proximal tubules similarly microperfused. Inulin did not appear in the majority of collected perfusates in these animals. These observations indicate that a physiological alteration in the permeability of the proximal tubule occurs during RVC. Such an increase in permeability is consistent with the view that enhanced passive extracellular back-flux plays a role in the reduction of net sodium and water reabsorption in this experimental condition.

The interpretation of tracer fluxes in terms of membrane structure

Very early in the era of isotopic tracers it became apparent that tracer fluxes did not always come out as one had predicted from classical measurements of transport by osmosis or diffusion. Thus Hevesy, Hofer & Krogh (1935) determined the water permeability of frog skin from osmotic uptake of water as well as from measurements of its permeability to heavy water. They found the first method to give values some 4–5 times higher than the latter. Although this result at first seemed disappointing, it was soon realized that the two types of experiments provided more information about the nature of osmosis through real membranes than had been available before. Thus it was shown that the results might be explained in terms of interaction between water molecules moving in bulk, possibly through pores in the membrane (Ussing, 1952; Koefoed-Johnsen & Ussing, 1953; Andersen & Ussing, 1957).