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Comparative studies of water permeability of red blood cells from humans and over 30 animal species: an overview of 20 years of collaboration with Philip Kuchel

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Abstract

NMR measurements of the diffusional permeability of the human adult red blood cell (RBC) membrane to water (P d) and of the activation energy (E a,d) of the process furnished values of P d ~ 4 × 10−3 cm/s at 25 °C and ~6.1 × 10−3 cm/s at 37 °C, and E a,d ~ 26 kJ/mol. Comparative NMR measurements for other species showed: (1) monotremes (echidna and platypus), chicken, little penguin, and saltwater crocodile have the lowest P d values; (2) sheep, cow, and elephant have P d values lower than human P d values; (3) cat, horse, alpaca, and camel have P d values close to those of humans; (4) guinea pig, dog, dingo, agile wallaby, red-necked wallaby, Eastern grey kangaroo, and red kangaroo have P d values higher than those of humans; (5) mouse, rat, rabbit, and “small and medium size” marsupials have the highest values of P d (>8.0 × 10−3 cm/s at 25 °C and >10.0 × 10−3 cm/s at 37 °C). There are peculiarities of E a,d values for the RBCs from different species. The maximum inhibition of diffusional permeability of RBCs induced by incubation with p-chloromercuribenzene sulfonate varied between 0 % (for the chicken and little penguin) to ~50 % (for human, mouse, cat, sheep, horse, camel, and Indian elephant), and ~60–75 % (for rat, guinea pig, rabbit, dog, alpaca, and all marsupials). These results indicate that no water channel proteins (WCPs) or aquaporins are present in the membrane of RBCs from monotremes (echidna, platypus), chicken, little penguin and saltwater crocodile whereas WCPs from the membranes of RBCs from marsupials have peculiarities.

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Acknowledgments

The author is very grateful to Philip Kuchel for his essential contribution to making our program of collaboration for over 20 years possible and fruitful. The author also thanks the co-authors of papers mentioned in the references, for their competent help in the program of research on the water permeability of red blood cells, started in 1976 with Vasile Morariu (Cluj-Napoca, Romania), which led to the discovery in 1977 of the implications of WCPs in epilepsy, with Vasile Morariu, Ileana Benga, and Cornelia Morariu (Cluj-Napoca, Romania), and later to the discovery in 1985 of the first water channel protein, later called AQP1 (for which special thanks are due to Octavian Popescu, Victor I. Pop, Victoria Borza, Ana Muresan, Ildiko Mocsy (Cluj-Napoca, Romania), Ross Holmes (USA), and John Wrigglesworth and Anthony Brain (UK)). Special thanks to Radu Mureşan, Adrian Florea, and Ciprian Mihali (for important help in achieving the final form of this paper). Financial support from the Ministry of Education and Research of The “Iuliu Hatieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy Cluj-Napoca, from the Academy of Medical Sciences, from the National Council for Science and Technology, from the National Council for Higher University Scientific Research (Romania), from Taronga Zoo, from The University of Sydney (Australia), from the Wellcome Trust (UK), and from the National Science Foundation (USA) is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. First Laboratory of Genetic Explorations, Cluj County Clinical Emergency Hospital, 6 Pasteur St., 400349, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Gheorghe Benga

  2. Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, “Vasile Goldis” Western University, Arad, Romania

    Gheorghe Benga

  3. Faculty of Science, School of Molecular Bioscience, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Gheorghe Benga

  4. Cluj-Napoca Branch, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania

    Gheorghe Benga

  5. Cluj-Napoca Branch, Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences, Bucharest, Romania

    Gheorghe Benga

  6. The Gheorghe Benga Foundation and The OUTNOBEL Foundation, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Gheorghe Benga

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  1. Gheorghe Benga
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Correspondence to Gheorghe Benga.

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Special Issue: From kinetics to imaging: An NMR odyssey.

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Benga, G. Comparative studies of water permeability of red blood cells from humans and over 30 animal species: an overview of 20 years of collaboration with Philip Kuchel. Eur Biophys J 42, 33–46 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00249-012-0868-7

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