Active Absorption of NH4+ by Thick Ascending Limb

Author(s):  
David W. Good
1988 ◽  
Vol 255 (1) ◽  
pp. F78-F87 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. W. Good

These experiments were designed to determine the relative contributions of active NH4+ transport and voltage-driven NH4+ diffusion to direct NH4+ absorption by the medullary thick ascending limb of the rat. Medullary thick ascending limbs were perfused in vitro with solutions containing 25 mM HCO3 and 4 mM total ammonia. Under steady-state conditions, the lumen-positive transepithelial voltage (VT) was not sufficient to account for the observed decrease in lumen NH4+ concentration, consistent with active absorption of NH4+. Flux calculations based on VT and measured NH4+ permeability (6 x 10(-5) cm/s) indicate that the majority (at least 65%) of total ammonia absorption is due to active transport of NH4+. The remainder of NH4+ absorption can be accounted for by voltage-driven diffusion. Increasing the potassium concentration from 4 to 24 mM in perfusate and bath markedly inhibited total ammonia absorption but did not affect VT, NH4+ permeability, or HCO3 absorption. These results are consistent with inhibition of the active component of NH4+ absorption by potassium. The active NH4+ absorption is likely mediated by cotransport of Na+, NH4+, and Cl- across the apical cell membrane. Inhibition of active NH4+ absorption by an increase in potassium concentration may be due, in part, to competition between NH4+ and K+ for a common binding site on the Na+ -K+ -2Cl- cotransport system.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. N. Paskalev ◽  
B. T. Galunska ◽  
D. Petkova-Valkova

Tamm–Horsfall Protein (uromodulin) is named after Igor Tamm and Franc Horsfall Jr who described it for the first time in 1952. It is a glycoprotein, secreted by the cells in the thick ascending limb of the loop of Henle. This protein will perform a number of important pathophysiological functions, including protection against uroinfections, especially caused by E. Сoli, and protection against formation of calcium concernments in the kidney. Igor Tamm (1922-1995) is an outstanding cytologist, virologist and biochemist. He is one of the pioneers in the study of viral replication. He was born in Estonia and died in the USA. In 1964 he was elected for a professorship in Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, where has been working continuously. Since 1959, he became a head of the virology lab established by his mentor and co-author Franc Horsfall. In the course of studies on the natural inhibitor of viral replication, Tamm and Horsfall isolated and characterized biochemically a new protein named after their names. Franc Lappin Horsfall Jr (1906-1971) was a well-known clinician and virologist with remarkable achievements in internal medicine. He was born and died in the USA. He worked in the Rockefeller Hospital from 1934 to 1960, then in the Center for Cancer Research at the Sloan-Kettering Institute. Here he was a leader of a research team studying the molecular mechanisms of immunity, the effects of chemotherapy with benzimidazole compounds (together with I. Tamm), coxsackie viruses, herpes simplex virus, etc. 


1995 ◽  
Vol 269 (4) ◽  
pp. R739-R748 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. De Rouffignac

The kidney is the main organ regulating composition of body fluids. A considerable number of hormones control the activity of renal cells to maintain hydromineral equilibrium. It becomes more and more difficult to interpret this multihormonal control in terms of regulatory processes. To illustrate this complexity, the hormonal regulation of electrolyte transport in the nephron thick ascending limb is taken as an example. This nephron segment is largely responsible for two kidney functions: the urinary-concentrating ability (by its capacity to deliver hypertonic sodium chloride into the medullary interstitium) and regulation of magnesium excretion into final urine. Six hormones are presently identified as acting on the transport of both sodium chloride and magnesium ions in this nephron segment. Therefore, the pertinent question is how the thick ascending limb and, hence, the kidney, is capable of regulating water balance independently from magnesium balance. It is proposed that the hormones act in combination: circulating levels of the individual hormones acting on these cells may determine the configuration of the paracellular and transcellular transport pathways of the epithelium either in the “sodium” or “magnesium” mode. The configuration would depend on the distribution and activity of the receptor at the surface of the basolateral membrane in contact with the circulating hormones. This distribution along with stimulation of respective signal transduction pathways would lead to the final biological effects. It is already known that the distribution of cell receptors may vary according to factors such as age, nutritional variability, hormonal status, degree of desensitization of the receptors, etc. The modulation of hormonal responses would depend therefore on the degree of coupling of hormone-receptor complexes to different intracellular transduction pathways and on the resulting negative and/or positive interactions between these pathways.


2021 ◽  
pp. 153537022110032
Author(s):  
Issa Alhamoud ◽  
Susan K Legan ◽  
Jyothsna Gattineni ◽  
Michel Baum

Prenatal dexamethasone has been shown to increase blood pressure in male offspring but the mechanism for the increase in blood pressure is unclear. The present study examined if prenatal programming by maternal injection of dexamethasone on days 15 and 16 of gestation affected the blood pressure comparably in female and male offspring. Our hypothesis was that males would be affected by prenatal dexamethasone to a greater extent than females and that either an increase in renal tubular transporter abundance or an increase in renin or aldosterone system would be associated with hypertension with prenatal programming. Prenatal dexamethasone increased blood pressure at two months and six months of age and resulted in proteinuria and albuminuria at six months in male but not female rat offspring. There was no effect of prenatal dexamethasone on blood pressure and proteinuria at one month in male and in female offspring. While prenatal dexamethasone increased male renal thick ascending limb sodium potassium two chloride cotransporter protein abundance at two months, prenatal dexamethasone on days 15 and 16 of gestation did not affect transporter abundance in males at other ages, nor did it affect proximal tubule sodium/hydrogen exchanger or distal convoluted tubule sodium chloride cotransporter protein abundance at any age. There was no difference in systemic renin or aldosterone in the prenatal dexamethasone group compared to same sex controls. In conclusion, male but not female offspring have an increase in blood pressure and urinary protein excretion with prenatal dexamethasone. The increase in blood pressure with prenatal programming was not associated with a consistent increase in renal tubular transporter protein abundance, nor plasma renin activity and serum aldosterone.


1985 ◽  
Vol 115 (9) ◽  
pp. 1203-1208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franco Ardüser ◽  
Siegfried Wolffram ◽  
Erwin Scharrer
Keyword(s):  

1998 ◽  
Vol 275 (6) ◽  
pp. F904-F914 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard L. Hébert ◽  
Tim O’Connor ◽  
Chris Neville ◽  
Kevin D. Burns ◽  
Odette Laneuville ◽  
...  

It is widely held that only one prostacyclin (IP) receptor exists that can couple to guanine stimulatory nucleotide binding proteins (Gs) leading to activation of adenyl cyclase. Although IP receptor mRNA is expressed in vascular arterial smooth muscle cells and platelets, with lower level expression in mature thymocytes, splenic lymphocytes, and megakaryocytes, there is no molecular evidence for IP receptor expression in renal epithelial cells. The purpose of the present study was to obtain molecular evidence for the expression and localization of the IP receptor and to study the signaling pathways of IP receptor in rat medullary thick ascending limb (MTAL). Biochemical studies showed that IP prostanoids do not increase cAMP in rat MTAL. However, in the presence of vasopressin, inhibition of cAMP formation by prostacyclin (PGI2) analogs is pertussis toxin sensitive and does not activate protein kinase C. In situ hybridization studies localized IP receptor mRNA expression to MTAL in the rat kidney outer medulla. The results of RT-PCR of freshly isolated RNA from MTAL, with primers specific for the mouse IP receptor cDNA, produced an amplification product of the correct predicted size that contained an expected Nco I endonuclease restriction site. We conclude that rat renal epithelial cells express the IP receptor, coupled to inhibition of cAMP production.


1997 ◽  
Vol 273 (4) ◽  
pp. F625-F634 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. E. Layton ◽  
E. Bruce Pitman ◽  
Leon C. Moore

A mathematical model was used to investigate the filter properties of the thick ascending limb (TAL), that is, the response of TAL luminal NaCl concentration to oscillations in tubular fluid flow. For the special case of no transtubular NaCl backleak and for spatially homogeneous transport parameters, the model predicts that NaCl concentration in intratubular fluid at each location along the TAL depends only on the fluid transit time up the TAL to that location. This exact mathematical result has four important consequences: 1) when a sinusoidal component is added to steady-state TAL flow, the NaCl concentration at the macula densa (MD) undergoes oscillations that are bounded by a range interval envelope with magnitude that decreases as a function of oscillatory frequency; 2) the frequency response within the range envelope exhibits nodes at those frequencies where the oscillatory flow has a transit time to the MD that equals the steady-state fluid transit time (this nodal structure arises from the establishment of standing waves in luminal concentration, relative to the steady-state concentration profile, along the length of the TAL); 3) for any dynamically changing but positive TAL flow rate, the luminal TAL NaCl concentration profile along the TAL decreases monotonically as a function of TAL length; and 4) sinusoidal oscillations in TAL flow, except at nodal frequencies, result in nonsinusoidal oscillations in NaCl concentration at the MD. Numerical calculations that include NaCl backleak exhibit solutions with these same four properties. For parameters in the physiological range, the first few nodes in the frequency response curve are separated by antinodes of significant amplitude, and the nodes arise at frequencies well below the frequency of respiration in rat. Therefore, the nodal structure and nonsinusoidal oscillations should be detectable in experiments, and they may influence the dynamic behavior of the tubuloglomerular feedback system.


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