Sodium–potassium pump


The sodium–potassium pump is an enzyme found in the cell membrane of all animal cells. It performs several functions in cell physiology.
The -ATPase enzyme is active. For every ATP molecule that the pump uses, three sodium ions are exported and two potassium ions are imported. Thus, there is a net export of a single positive charge per pump cycle. The net effect is an extracellular concentration of sodium ions which is 5 times the intracellular concentration, and an intracellular concentration of potassium ions which is 30 times the extracellular concentration.
The sodium–potassium pump was discovered in 1957 by the Danish scientist Jens Christian Skou, who was awarded a Nobel Prize for his work in 1997. Its discovery marked an important step forward in the understanding of how ions get into and out of cells, and it has particular significance for excitable cells such as nerve cells, which depend on this pump to respond to stimuli and transmit impulses.
All mammals have four different sodium pump sub-types, or isoforms. Each has unique properties and tissue expression patterns. This enzyme belongs to the family of P-type ATPases.

Function

The -ATPase helps maintain resting potential, affects transport, and regulates cellular volume. It also functions as a signal transducer/integrator to regulate the MAPK pathway, reactive oxygen species, as well as intracellular calcium.

Energy expenditure

The -ATPase is an active enzyme. It uses energy from ATP to move ions against their concentration gradient. In fact, all cells expend a large fraction of the ATP they produce to maintain their required cytosolic Na and K concentrations.
For neurons, the -ATPase can be responsible for up to 3/4 of the cell's energy expenditure.
In many types of tissue, ATP consumption by the -ATPases have been related to glycolysis. This was first discovered in red blood cells, but has later been evidenced in renal cells, smooth muscles surrounding the blood vessels, and cardiac Purkinje cells. Recently, glycolysis has also been shown to be of particular importance for -ATPase in skeletal muscles, where inhibition of glycogen breakdown leads to reduced -ATPase activity and lower force production.

Resting potential

In order to maintain the cell membrane potential, cells keep a low concentration of sodium ions and high levels of potassium ions within the cell. The sodium–potassium pump mechanism moves 3 sodium ions out and moves 2 potassium ions in, thus, in total, removing one positive charge carrier from the intracellular space. In addition, there is a short-circuit channel for potassium in the membrane, thus the voltage across the plasma membrane is close to the Nernst potential of potassium.

Reversal potential

Even if both and ions have the same charge, they can still have very different equilibrium potentials for both outside and/or inside concentrations. The sodium-potassium pump moves toward a nonequilibrium state with the relative concentrations of and for both inside and outside of cell. For instance, the concentration of in cytosol is 100-140 mM, whereas the concentration of is 5-15 mM. On the other hand, in extracellular space, the usual concentration range of is about 3.5-5 mM, whereas the concentration of is about 135-145 mM.

Transport

Export of sodium ions from the cell provides the driving force for several secondary active transporters such as membrane transport proteins, which import glucose, amino acids and other nutrients into the cell by use of the sodium ion gradient.
Another important task of the - pump is to provide a gradient that is used by certain carrier processes. In the gut, for example, sodium is transported out of the reabsorbing cell on the blood side via the - pump, whereas, on the reabsorbing side, the -glucose symporter uses the created gradient as a source of energy to import both and glucose, which is far more efficient than simple diffusion. Similar processes are located in the renal tubular system.

Controlling cell volume

Failure of the - pumps can result in swelling of the cell. A cell's osmolarity is the sum of the concentrations of the various ion species and many proteins and other organic compounds inside the cell. When this is higher than the osmolarity outside of the cell, water flows into the cell through osmosis. This will cause the cell to swell up and lyse. The - pump helps to maintain the right concentrations of ions.
Furthermore, when the cell begins to swell, this automatically activates the - pump because it changes the internal concentrations of - to which the pump is sensitive.

Functioning as signal transducer

Within the last decade, many independent labs have demonstrated that, in addition to the classical ion transporting, this membrane protein can also relay extracellular ouabain-binding signalling into the cell through regulation of protein tyrosine phosphorylation. For instance, a study investigated the function of -ATPase in foot muscle and hepatopancreas in land snail Otala lactea by comparing the active and estivating states. They concluded that reversible phosphorylation can control the same means of coordinating ATP use by this ion pump with the rates of the ATP generation by catabolic pathways in estivating O. lactea. The downstream signals through ouabain-triggered protein phosphorylation events include activation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase signal cascades, mitochondrial reactive oxygen species production, as well as activation of phospholipase C and inositol triphosphate receptor in different intracellular compartments.
Protein-protein interactions play a very important role in - pump-mediated signal transduction. For example, the - pump interacts directly with Src, a non-receptor tyrosine kinase, to form a signaling receptor complex. Src is initially inhibited by the - pump. However, upon subsequent ouabain binding, the Src kinase domain is released and then activated. Based on this scenario, NaKtide, a peptide Src inhibitor derived from the - pump, was developed as a functional ouabain–- pump-mediated signal transduction. - pump also interacts with ankyrin, IP3R, PI3K, PLCgamma1 and cofilin.

Controlling neuron activity states

The - pump has been shown to control and set the intrinsic activity mode of cerebellar Purkinje neurons, accessory olfactory bulb mitral cells and probably other neuron types. This suggests that the pump might not simply be a homeostatic, "housekeeping" molecule for ionic gradients, but could be a computation element in the cerebellum and the brain. Indeed, a mutation in the - pump causes rapid onset dystonia-parkinsonism, which has symptoms to indicate that it is a pathology of cerebellar computation. Furthermore, an ouabain block of - pumps in the cerebellum of a live mouse results in it displaying ataxia and dystonia. Alcohol inhibits sodium–potassium pumps in the cerebellum and this is likely how it corrupts cerebellar computation and body coordination. The distribution of the - pump on myelinated axons in the human brain has been demonstrated to be along the internodal axolemma, and not within the nodal axolemma as previously thought. The - pump disfunction has been tied to various diseases, including epilepsy and brain malformations.

Mechanism

Looking at the process starting from the interior of the cell:
  • The pump has a higher affinity for ions than ions, thus after binding ATP, binds 3 intracellular ions.
  • ATP is hydrolyzed, leading to phosphorylation of the pump at a highly conserved aspartate residue and subsequent release of ADP. This process leads to a conformational change in the pump.
  • The conformational change exposes the ions to the extracellular region. The phosphorylated form of the pump has a low affinity for ions, so they are released; by contrast it has high affinity for the ions.
  • The pump binds 2 extracellular ions, which induces dephosphorylation of the pump, reverting it to its previous conformational state, thus releasing the ions into the cell.
  • The unphosphorylated form of the pump has a higher affinity for ions. ATP binds, and the process starts again.

    Regulation

Endogenous

The -ATPase is upregulated by cAMP. Thus, substances causing an increase in cAMP upregulate the -ATPase. These include the ligands of the Gs-coupled GPCRs. In contrast, substances causing a decrease in cAMP downregulate the -ATPase. These include the ligands of the Gi-coupled GPCRs. Note: Early studies indicated the opposite effect, but these were later found to be inaccurate due to additional complicating factors.
The -ATPase is endogenously negatively regulated by the inositol pyrophosphate 5-InsP7, an intracellular signaling molecule generated by IP6K1, which relieves an autoinhibitory domain of PI3K p85α to drive endocytosis and degradation.
The -ATPase is also regulated by reversible phosphorylation. Research has shown that in estivating animals, the -ATPase is in the phosphorylated and low activity form. Dephosphorylation of -ATPase can recover it to the high activity form.

Exogenous

The -ATPase can be pharmacologically modified by administering drugs exogenously. Its expression can also be modified through hormones such as triiodothyronine, a thyroid hormone.
For instance, -ATPase found in the membrane of heart cells is an important target of cardiac glycosides, inotropic drugs used to improve heart performance by increasing its force of contraction.
Muscle contraction is dependent on a 100- to 10,000-times-higher-than-resting intracellular Calcium in biology| concentration, which is caused by release from the muscle cells' sarcoplasmic reticulum. Immediately after muscle contraction, intracellular is quickly returned to its normal concentration by a carrier enzyme in the plasma membrane, and a calcium pump in sarcoplasmic reticulum, causing the muscle to relax.
According to the Blaustein-hypothesis, this carrier enzyme uses the Na gradient generated by the - pump to remove from the intracellular space, hence slowing down the - pump results in a permanently elevated level in the muscle, which may be the mechanism of the long-term inotropic effect of cardiac glycosides such as digoxin. The problem with this hypothesis is that at pharmacological concentrations of digitalis, less than 5% of Na/K-ATPase molecules – specifically the α2 isoform in heart and arterial smooth muscle – are inhibited, not enough to affect the intracellular concentration of. However, apart from the population of Na/K-ATPase in the plasma membrane, responsible for ion transport, there is another population in the caveolae which acts as digitalis receptor and stimulates the EGF receptor.