pH of isolated resting skeletal muscle and its relation to potassium content

¹ Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and Evans Memorial Department of Clinical Research, Massachusetts Memorial Hospitals, Boston University Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts

Intracellular pH of isolated rat diaphragm was measured with both a C¹⁴-DMO method and a tissue CO₂ technique. The values for intracellular pH by each method, although slightly different, changed in parallel under most experimental conditions. Acute, severe potassium depletion in vitro had no detectable effect on intracellular pH, nor did prior depletion in vivo followed by incubation in a potassium-free bath. This was true whether or not the potassium-depleted muscle was exposed to normal or elevated extracellular levels of bicarbonate, and was unaffected by the presence of cationic amino acids in the bath. Acute repletion of previously potassium-depleted muscle resulted in a small rise in cell pH, but this was no greater than that produced by loading normal tissues with potassium. It is concluded that under the conditions of these experiments there is no evidence of intracellular acidosis in potassium-depleted skeletal muscle. Rat diaphragm can lose up to half its potassium content in vitro without detectable increase in hydrogen ion concentration.