Apical membrane vesicles of ADH-stimulated toad bladder are highly water permeable

Antidiuretic hormone (ADH) stimulation of the toad urinary bladder causes intracellular vesicles called aggrephores to fuse with the apical plasma membrane of granular cells. Aggrephore membranes contain particle aggregates. Particle aggregates are believed to be water channels that cause large increases in the water permeability (PF) of the granular cell apical membrane. Removal of ADH causes the retrieval of particle aggregate-containing apical membrane via endocytosis and a decline in PF. We have previously shown that fluid phase markers are sequestered in these particle aggregate-containing vesicles during retrieval of the apical membrane and that these vesicles can be recovered in cell homogenates. We have now loaded these vesicles with the self-quenching fluorophore carboxyfluorescein (CF) to measure and compare their PF with that of CF-loaded resealed human erythrocyte ghosts. The membranes of these retrieved vesicles have a very high water permeability. The minimum PF of 99% of these vesicles is 4.5 X 10(-2) cm/s. This PF is comparable with that of erythrocyte ghosts (5.4 X 10(-2) cm/s) measured under identical conditions. We conclude that these vesicles are highly permeable to water, and this is consistent with their postulated function of retrieving water channels that have been inserted into the apical membrane in response to ADH.