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. 1971 Mar;213(3):683–689. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.1971.sp009408

The membrane potential and permeabilities of the L cell membrane to Na, K and chloride

J F Lamb, M G A MacKinnon
PMCID: PMC1331749  PMID: 5102533

Abstract

1. The chloride content and fluxes, and the membrane potential of L cells have been measured.

2. L cells contain chloride, 70 m-mole/l. intracellular water and have a flux of 5·5 p-mole/cm2 sec.

3. The membrane potential is -15 mV.K-free Krebs causes an increase in Em and replacing chloride with sulphate causes a temporary reduction in Em.

4. These values for Em and chloride, and previously obtained values for Na and K fluxes and contents were used to calculate the permeabilities of the various ions using the Goldman constant field theory. This gave permeabilities of 6·3, 4·2 and 51 × 10-9 cm/sec for K, Na and chloride respectively, a ratio of 1:0·67:8·10.

5. It is concluded that these cells have a low membrane potential because the PK is some 100 times lower than in skeletal muscle, therefore leading to a PK of the same order as PNa.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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