Membrane domain localization of ph-regulating transporters in frog skeletal muscle membrane vesicles. Putnam, Robert W., Phyllis B. Douglas, and N. A. Ritucci. Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Wright State University, School of Medicine, Dayton, Ohio 45435
APStracts 3:0159C, 1996.
The distribution of pH-regulating transporters in surface and transverse tubular membrane (TTM) domains of frog skeletal muscle was studied. BCECF-loaded giant sarcolemmal vesicles, containing surface membrane, exhibited reversible Na+/H+ exchange. A microsomal vesicle fraction was shown to be enriched in TTM based on high Na+/K+ ATPase and Mg2+ ATPase activity, high ouabain and nitrendipine binding, and low Ca2+ ATPase activity. TTM vesicles were well sealed and oriented inside out. Vesicles were loaded with the pH-sensitive dye pyranine. In response to an inwardly directed Na+ gradient, vesicles displayed virtually no alkalinization unless monensin was present. No pH response to an imposed Na+ gradient was seen regardless of the direction of the pH gradient across the vesicles, after phosphorylation of the vesicles with protein kinase C, or upon exposure to GTP-_-S. In the presence of CO2, addition of Na+ or of Cl- had no effect on vesicle pH. These data indicate that the transverse tubular membrane lacks functional pH-regulating transporters (Na+/H+ and (Na++HCO3-)/Cl- exchangers), suggesting that pH-regulating transporters are localized only to the surface membrane domain in frog muscle.

Received 8 August 1994; accepted in final form 26 April 1996.
APS Manuscript Number C478-4.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Cell Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1996 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 28 May 96