sodium pump

As yet no one knows precisely how the sodium pump works.

The energy expended by the cell in running the sodium pump does three things.

The sodium pump regulates two vital chemicals in the body.

The primary sodium pumps are designed with flywheels so they will coast down slowly (90 seconds) if power is removed.

The breakthrough research which is seen as proof for the sodium pump mechanism was performed in yeast cells.

Sodium pumps in the kidneys must always operate to conserve sodium.

These cells do not have the sodium pump, and hence palytoxin does not affect them.

The testing and development notably improved the safety and reliability of sodium pump seals.

In 1991, a potent sodium pump inhibitor was isolated from the human circulation and identified as ouabain.

This allows for the preservation of the resting membrane potential and other functions dependent on the normal functioning of the sodium pump.

The most common cause is digoxin's inhibitory action on the Sodium pump, and the development of cataracts which can cause a yellow filtering effect.

Also, the sodium pump is necessary for viability of all cells, and this explains the fact that palytoxin affects all cells.

It is this acetylcholine which alters the working of the sodium pump so that depolarization takes place and the nerve impulse is initiated.

The sodium ion that floods into the cell at the point where the sodium pump has ceased to operate forces potassium ion out.

Lithium ions interfere with ion transport processes (see "sodium pump") that relay and amplify messages carried to the cells of the brain.

This opposed polarization may act as an electrical stimulus itself, one that stops the sodium pump in the regions immediately adjacent to the point of original stimulus.

However, because it is a poor substrate at the sodium pump, it cannot maintain a membrane potential and only sustains a small gradient across biological membranes.

One of his most important observations was that blocking a major mechanism for removing salt, called the sodium pump, did not cause rapid swelling of the kidney cells.

Functional correlation between Na+,K+-ATPase and electrogenic sodium pump in membrane fractions and intact muscle cells.

This somehow reactivates the sodium pump at that point in the membrane, and sodium ions are pushed out once more and potassium ions drawn in.

Ouabain isolated from plants is widely used by scientists in in vitro studies to specifically block the sodium pump (Na-K-ATPase).

"Perhaps that means the sodium pumps within the cells of the bundle of His are not functioning or perhaps overwhelmed, resulting in a deleterious alteration in membrane potentials."

Through this channel, which it forms within the sodium pump, monovalent positive ions such as sodium and potassium can diffuse freely thereby destroying the ion gradient of the cell.

His work on the 'sodium pump' led to his election to the Royal Society and to Honorary Foreign Membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Each comprises a primary sodium pump, two intermediate heat exchangers, a secondary sodium pump with an expansion tank located upstream, and an emergency pressure discharge tank.