Affiliation:
1. Departments of Biology and
2. General Physiology and Biochemistry, University of Milan, 20133 Milan, Italy
Abstract
The K+-dependent symporter for leucine and other neutral amino acids expressed along the midgut of the silkworm Bombyx mori operates with best efficiency in the presence of a steep pH gradient across the brush-border membrane, with external alkaline pH values up to 11, and an electrical potential difference (Δψ) of ∼200 mV. Careful determinations of leucine kinetics as a function of external amino acid concentrations between 50 and 1,000 μM, performed with brush-border membrane vesicles (BBMV) obtained from the middle and posterior midgut regions, revealed that the kinetic parameter affected by the presence of a ΔpH was the maximal rate of transport. The addition of Δψ caused a further marked increase of the translocation rate. At nonsaturating leucine concentrations in the solution bathing the external side of the brush-border membrane, leucine accumulation within BBMV and midgut cells was not only driven by the gradient of the driver cation K+ and Δψ but occurred also in the absence of K+. The ability of the symporter to translocate the substrate in its binary form allows the intracellular accumulation of leucine in the absence of K+, provided that a pH gradient, with alkaline outside, is present. The mechanisms involved in this accumulation are discussed.
Publisher
American Physiological Society
Subject
Physiology (medical),Physiology
Cited by
40 articles.
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