Hydraulic and diffusional permeabilities of isolated outer medullary descending vasa recta from the rat. Turner, Malcolm R., and Thomas L. Pallone. Division of Nephrology, M.S. Hershey Medical Center, Pennsylvania State University, Hershey, PA 17033 and Division of Nephrology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201 -1595
APStracts 3:0279H, 1996.
Hydraulic and diffusional permeabilities of isolated outer medullary descending vasa recta from the rat. Water permeates many microvessel walls via a pathway shared with small hydrophilic solutes and also via an exclusive water pathway. In outer medullary descending vasa recta (OMDVR), the relationship between diffusional permeabilities to water and sodium indicates the existence of an exclusive water pathway and suggests that of a shared pathway. We investigated the latter possibility by estimating hydraulic permeability (L p ) and diffusional permeability to 3 H-raffinose (P raf ), in isolated perfused OMDVR. The product of L p and osmotic reflexion coefficient of albumin (L p s a) was 1.56+/-0.19 x 10 -6 cm s -1 mm Hg -1 (n=28), calculated from transmural volume fluxes induced by perfusate-to-bath differences in albumin oncotic pressure (DP a ). P raf in the same vessels was 40.1+/-7.5 x 10 -5 cm s -1 , when DP a was zero. In separate experiments, sa was at least 0.89+/-0.10 (n=17). L p s a correlates with P raf , indicating that OMDVR contain a shared pathway for convection driven by DP a and for diffusion of small hydrophilic solutes.

Received 30 January 1996; accepted in final form 21 June 1996.
APS Manuscript Number H88-6.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Heart Circ. Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1996 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 25 July 1996