Electrical parameters in gallbladders of different species their contribution to the origin of the transmural potential difference

Abstract

Amphotericin B enhances Na⁺ conductance of the mucosal membrane of gallbladder epithelial cells and in such a way it modifies the brush border electromotive force. On this basis a method to measure cell and shunt resistances by comparing changes of the mucosal membrane potential (V _m ) and of the transmural p.d. (V _ms ) is developed. This method is applied in gallbladders of different vertebrate species (i.e. rabbit, guinea pig, goose, tortoise, toad, trout). The two tested mammals, rabbit and guinea pig, exhibited a lower shunting percentage (89–93%) than the nonmammals (96–97%), but this fact did not bring about a homogeneous positiveV _ms . This means that shunting percent contributes, but it is not the only source of differences inV _ms , in accordance with that reported by Gelarden and Rose (J. Membrane Biol. 19:37, 1974). Moreover, mammals exhibited a lower luminal resistance and a lower ratio between luminal and basolateral resistance than nonmammals. Possible causes of these differences are discussed.