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. 1973 Jul;232(1):23–45. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.1973.sp010255

Effect of insulin upon the sodium pump in frog skeletal muscle

Richard D Moore
PMCID: PMC1350490  PMID: 4542575

Abstract

1. Insulin increased the rate of net Na extrusion from Na-loaded frog skeletal muscle into glucose-free Na-Ringer. After a 90 min period of efflux, the insulin-treated muscles contained approximately 11% less intracellular water than did their controls. This decrease in intracellular water resulted in an increase in the concentration of intracellular K, [K+]i, even though there was no definite effect upon net K flux. In spite of the decrease in intracellular water, [Na+]i was lower in those muscles treated with 500 m-u. insulin/ml. than in the controls.

2. Insulin consistently increased 22Na efflux into Na-Ringer containing either 10 or 2·5 mM-K+. This effect was reversible and was not produced by other proteins.

3. Acetylstrophanthidin (5 × 10-6 M) blocked all or nearly all net Na efflux even in the presence of insulin. The presence of this concentration of acetylstrophanthidin or of K-free Na-Ringer inhibited the effect of insulin upon 22Na efflux from Na-loaded muscles.

4. All of the above results indicate that insulin in some way increases the activity of the Na pump. The inhibition by K-free Na-Ringer also suggests that this is not due to production of additional pump sites.

5. Insulin also increased 22Na efflux and net sodium efflux into Li-Ringer. When the new steady-state was reached after addition of insulin, the 22Na kinetics still obeyed a power relation to intracellular 22Na. However, in every single case, insulin resulted in a decrease of approximately 18% in the exponent, n.

6. Curve-fitting of the kinetic data to equations based upon a three-site model of the Na pump suggests that insulin increases the affinity of the sites toward Na+. In terms of Eisenman's theory of ion selectivity, this would indicate an increase in the anionic field strength of the Na-carrying sites and also predict that the increase in affinity for H+ would be greater than that for Na+. This latter prediction is entirely consistent with the observed decrease in n.

7. The results suggest that insulin may be increasing H+ efflux as well as Na+ efflux and thereby may be increasing intracellular pH. It is suggested that some of the intracellular effects of insulin might be mediated by such an effect.

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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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