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. 1981 Nov;78(11):7119–7123. doi: 10.1073/pnas.78.11.7119

Alveolar subphase pH in the lungs of anesthetized rabbits.

D W Nielson, J Goerke, J A Clements
PMCID: PMC349207  PMID: 6947276

Abstract

We measured the pH of the alveolar subphase fluid by puncturing the most superficial alveoli of the exposed lungs of anesthetized rabbits with H+-selective and nonselective KCl microelectrodes. In these experiments, we bathed the lung surface with paraffin oil or buffered Ringer's solutions that had a CO2 tension of 40 Torr (1 Torr = 133.3 Pa) and found an alveolar pH of 6.92 +/- 0.01 (mean +/- sEM). When the pH of the surface buffer was below 6.7 or above 7.5, alveolar pH varied with surface buffer pH. With the nonselective electrode, we did not find a significant electrical potential difference between the alveolar fluid and the pleural surface. These results are consistent with active transport of H+ (or HCO3(-) across alveolar epithelium.

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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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