Effect of pentachlorophenol (PCP) on frog cornea epithelium

Pentachlorophenol (PCP) is a toxic substance that affects many tissues adversely. Present experiments, using an in vitro preparation, were designed to study whether PCP affected the electrophysiological parameters of the bullfrog cornea epithelium, specifically, the Na+/K+ ATPase pump and the K+ conductance located in the basolateral membrane and the Cl- conductance located in the apical membrane. For this purpose, corneas were impaled with microelectrodes and experiments were done under short-circuit current (Isc) conditions. Addition of PCP to a concentration of 5 x 10-5 M to the tear solution gave a marked decrease in Isc; a marked depolarization of the intracellular potential, Vo; and minimal but significant decreases in the apical membrane fractional resistance, fRo, and in the transepithelial conductance, gt. Isc experiments in Cl--free solutions with amphotericin B in the tear solution confirm results indicating that PCP inhibits the active transepithelial transport mechanism and produces a small increase in the basolateral membrane resistance due to a decrease in the K+ conductance.