PERMEABILITY OF THE ERYTHROCYTE FOR ANIONS

Excerpt

A striking feature of the permeability of erythrocytes is the rapidity with which many anions enter and leave the cell. It is very probable that anion penetration is always an anion exchange across the membrane. Cation penetration either does not occur at all, or does so at such a slow rate that it cannot keep pace with the rapidly penetrating anion. Indeed the slow penetration of cations seems to occur only under conditions where there has been injury to the membrane of the cell [Jacobs and Parpart (7)]. The univalent inorganic anions (OH⁻, HCO₃ ⁻, Cl⁻, Br⁻, CN⁻, SCN⁻, NO₃ ⁻, I⁻) exchange across the membrane with great rapidity while polyvalent anions (e.g., SO₄ ⁻⁻, HPO₄ ⁻⁻) do so at a much slower rate [Jacobs (6), Mond and Gertz (10), Luckner and Lo-Sing (8), Dirken and Mook (4)]. A number of organic anions also appear to penetrate the red cells;...