Cells must avoid gross alterations of volume in order to survive. Obviously, excessive cell swelling will jeopardize the integrity of the cell membrane, and both cell swelling and cell shrinkage will interfere with cytoskeletal architecture. Moreover, cellular function critically depends…
In this chapter we discuss the pathways and mechanisms of water transport across cell membranes and epithelia. The concepts of diffusion and osmosis are presented at the biophysical level and applied to water transport phenomena across lipid bilayers and membrane-spanning…
Ion motive ATPases involved in transcellular ion transport by renal epithelial cells include two molecular families: P-ATPases (Na,K-ATPase and H,K-ATPase) and V-ATPases. Na,K-ATPase is found in the plasma membrane of every vertebrate cell and exchanges three intracellular Na + for…
Ion transport across the cell membrane is essential to maintain the composition of the intracellular milieu . This chapter provides an introduction to ion transport processes in the cell membrane. The cell membrane is a thin sheet containing lipids (phospholipid…
Few cell types more elegantly embody the dictum that “form follows function” than do those of polarized epithelia. It is the unique architecture of renal epithelial cells that permits them to mediate vectorial transport. This transport, in turn, essentially determines…