Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 31 October 1969:
Vol. 166. no. 3905, pp. 613 - 615
DOI: 10.1126/science.166.3905.613
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Seawater Teleosts: Evidence for a Sodium-Potassium Exchange in the Branchial Sodium-Excreting Pump

J. Maetz 1

1 Département de Biologie, Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique, Station Zoologique, 06, Villefranche-sur-Mer, France

The net sodium extrusion rate by the gill of the seawater-adapted euryhaline flounder is identical to the potassium influx. The excretion of sodium is blocked in K+-free seawater solutions. The instantaneous sodium outflux readjustment pattern of flounders transferred from seawater to solutions of various sodium chloride or potassium chloride concentrations is consistent with the hypothesis of a linkage between Na+ outflux and K+ influx through a common exchange carrier. External Na+ and K+ compete for this comnmonz carrier. It is suggested that the exchange diffusion mechanism (linkage of sodium influx and outflux) and the high internal sodium turnover rate which characterizes all seawater teleosts are the results of this competitive process. The sodium-potassium dependent adenosine triphosphatase system occurring in the gill of the seawater teleosts may play a central role in this sodium-potassium exchange pump.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Teleost fish osmoregulation: what have we learned since August Krogh, Homer Smith, and Ancel Keys.
D. H. Evans (2008)
Am J Physiol Regulatory Integrative Comp Physiol 295, R704-R713
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
The Multifunctional Fish Gill: Dominant Site of Gas Exchange, Osmoregulation, Acid-Base Regulation, and Excretion of Nitrogenous Waste.
D. H. Evans, P. M. Piermarini, and K. P. Choe (2005)
Physiol Rev 85, 97-177
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)