title: NMR measurement of intracellular potassium in the perfused normotensive and spontaneously hypertensive rat aorta by a multinuclear subtraction procedure.
abstract: Intracellular free potassium ion concentrations have been measured in the isolated perfused aortae from Wistar-Kyoto and spontaneously hypertensive rats by a novel multinuclear NMR procedure, which allows the estimation and subtraction of the extracellular potassium signal from the total 39K+ resonance. When tested on a sample of erythrocytes, the method yielded an intracellular potassium concentration of 149 mmol/L cell water, which is similar to the previously reported average of 140 mmol/L cell water, indicating full (100%) NMR "visibility" of red cell 39K+. In contrast, the 39K+ resonance of the perfused rat aorta preparation indicated very low (approximately 15%) NMR visibility of intracellular potassium in the aortic tissue, similar to that previously reported for perfused hearts. More importantly, aortae from spontaneously hypertensive rats yielded a corrected (for low NMR visibility) intracellular potassium concentration of only 90 +/- 10 (mean +/- SE; n = 6) mmol/L cell water, which was significantly lower (40%; P = .02) than that in aortae from normotensive rats. The NMR data thus reveal a significant depletion of intracellular potassium in hypertensive arterial smooth muscle cells.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York 10461.
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Veniero
authors.forename: R K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Gupta
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001011:Aorta / Q000378:metabolism*; D006973:Hypertension / Q000378:metabolism*; D007425:Intracellular Membranes / Q000378:metabolism*; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D008297:Male; D009131:Muscle, Smooth, Vascular / Q000378:metabolism; D010477:Perfusion; D011188:Potassium / Q000378:metabolism*; D051381:Rats; D011918:Rats, Inbred SHR; D011921:Rats, Inbred WKY; D012016:Reference Values; D013382:Subtraction Technique
chemical_list: D011188:Potassium