Cation exchange—a common mechanism in the storage and release of biogenic amines stored in granules (vesicles)?

Abstract

Studies on the uptake and storage of sodium and biogenic amines (phenylethylamine, noradrenaline [norpinephrine], histamine) by 2 weak cation-exchangers, IRC-50 and Sephadex C-50, and by biogenic granule-enriched preparations [bovine nerve, mast cell and chromaffin granules] demonstrated that the synthetic and biogenic materials had several common characteristics. They showed similar concentration- and pH-dependence and fitted the same cation-exchange and receptor-binding equations. The matrices of amine-storing granules probably have the properties of weak cation-exchangers, with carboxyls as the cation-binding groups.