The Sodium Glucose Cotransporter SGLT1 Is an Extremely Efficient Facilitator of Passive Water Transport.

The small intestine is void of aquaporins adept at facilitating vectorial water transport, and yet it reabsorbs ∼8 liters of fluid daily. Implications of the sodium glucose cotransporter SGLT1 in either pumping water or passively channeling water contrast with its reported water transporting capacity, which lags behind that of aquaporin-1 by 3 orders of magnitude. Here we overexpressed SGLT1 in MDCK cell monolayers and reconstituted the purified transporter into proteoliposomes. We observed the rate of osmotic proteoliposome deflation by light scattering. Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy served to assess (i) SGLT1 abundance in both vesicles and plasma membranes and (ii) flow-mediated dilution of an aqueous dye adjacent to the cell monolayer. Calculation of the unitary water channel permeability, pf, yielded similar values for cell and proteoliposome experiments. Neither the absence of glucose or Na(+), nor the lack of membrane voltage in vesicles, nor the directionality of water flow grossly altered pf Such weak dependence on protein conformation indicates that a water-impermeable occluded state (glucose and Na(+) in their binding pockets) lasts for only a minor fraction of the transport cycle or, alternatively, that occlusion of the substrate does not render the transporter water-impermeable as was suggested by computational studies of the bacterial homologue vSGLT. Although the similarity between the pf values of SGLT1 and aquaporin-1 makes a transcellular pathway plausible, it renders water pumping physiologically negligible because the passive flux would be orders of magnitude larger.

Monitoring single-channel water permeability in polarized cells.

So far the determination of unitary permeability (p(f)) of water channels that are expressed in polarized cells is subject to large errors because the opening of a single water channel does not noticeably increase the water permeability of a membrane patch above the background. That is, in contrast to the patch clamp technique, where the single ion channel conductance may be derived from a single experiment, two experiments separated in time and/or space are required to obtain the single-channel water permeability p(f) as a function of the incremental water permeability (P(f,c)) and the number (n) of water channels that contributed to P(f,c). Although the unitary conductance of ion channels is measured in the native environment of the channel, p(f) is so far derived from reconstituted channels or channels expressed in oocytes. To determine the p(f) of channels from live epithelial monolayers, we exploit the fact that osmotic volume flow alters the concentration of aqueous reporter dyes adjacent to the epithelia. We measure these changes by fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, which allows the calculation of both P(f,c) and osmolyte dilution within the unstirred layer. Shifting the focus of the laser from the aqueous solution to the apical and basolateral membranes allowed the FCS-based determination of n. Here we validate the new technique by determining the p(f) of aquaporin 5 in Madin-Darby canine kidney cell monolayers. Because inhibition and subsequent activity rescue are monitored on the same sample, drug effects on exocytosis or endocytosis can be dissected from those on p(f).

The relation of different-scale membrane processes under nitric oxide influence.

Rhythmic activity, synaptic transmission and propagation of excitation depend on the processes that occur at different cellular levels. Modulation of neuron activity results from the changes of plasma membrane and organelles properties. We aimed to study the relationship between changes of the ion channels activity, membrane microviscosity and amount of bound Ca(2+) under the influence of nitric oxide (NO). We also investigated the effect of NO on the refractive index of neurons. We have shown that NO activates voltage-dependent K(K(V))-channels and leads to the decrease in the amount of membrane-bound and stored Ca(2+). NO causes a decrease in the microviscosity of the membrane of cytosomes and altered refractive index of neurones. The latter can result from the modification of plasma membrane physico-chemical properties and structural changes in the cytoplasm (vesicles movement, reorganisation of cytoskeleton, etc.). It is suggested that long-term modifications of the physico-chemical properties of membranes and reorganisation in the cytoplasm affect neuron activity and signal transmission.