The Discovery of the Cellular Sodium Pump in the 20th Century

Document from the year 2024 in the subject Chemistry - Bio-chemistry, , language: English, abstract: During her doctoral and postdoctoral studies, Beatrice Maier Anner became familiar with a fascinating biological system, called sodium pump by the physiologists and Na,K-ATPase by the biochemists; it is a sort of biomotor located in the cell membrane, which constantly expulses sodium (Na) ions from the cell interior and replaces them by potassium (K) ions, at the expense of chemical energy provided by adenosine-triphosphate (ATP) which is cleaved to adenosine-diphosphate (ADP) by the Na,K-ATPase, which gets its pump energy from the cleavage of this chemical bond. There would be no life without this fundamental biological system. Interestingly, it is also a pharmacological receptor, i.e. compounds extracted from the Digitalis plant of from the toad bind to the pump and block it, hence the toxicity of e.g. digitoxin or the toad's bufotoxins. The author has acquired extensive practical and theoretical knowledge of this biological system, acquired at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA consisting in inserting purified functional Na,K-ATPase into artificial membranes (liposomes) in order to study the pump activity on a molecular level. The present book is a unique historical overview from the discovery and purification of the sodium pump to its reconstitution in artificial membranes in the 20th century. This short book permits to become rapidly familiar with this fascinating biomotor and to find unique historical sources.