Saturable urea transport pathway across the urinary bladder of Bufo viridis and salt acclimation

Urea fluxes across the urinary bladder of Bufo viridis were studied in vitro after modification of the mounting technique. The fluxes increased as a function of the bath urea concentration, saturating near 200 mmol/l. The apparent Km was 88 mmol/l in the bladders from tapwater-acclimated toads, and 107 mmol/l in toads acclimated to 500 mOsm NaCl. The Vmax which was 300 mumol.h-1.cm-2 at room temperature in bladders from tapwater acclimation, changed to more than 1500 mumol.h-1.cm-2 upon salt acclimation. It is suggested that urea movement across the urinary bladder of this species occurs by facilitated diffusion and that salt acclimation induces an increase in the density of this pathway, but not of its characteristics (Km).