Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 7, 2025

Isolation and Adoptive Transfer of High Salt Treated Antigen-presenting Dendritic Cells
Published on: March 5, 2019
Epithelial Na+ Channels, Immune Cells, and Salt
Annet Kirabo1, Sepiso K Masenga2, Thomas R Kleyman3,4
1Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Department of Medicine, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Vanderbilt Center for Immunobiology, Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology and Inflammation and Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
Abstract:
Epithelial Na+ channels (ENaCs) are known to affect blood pressure through their role in transporting Na+ in the distal nephron of the kidney. While expressed in other epithelial tissues, there is growing evidence that ENaCs are also expressed in nonepithelial tissues where their activity influences blood pressure. This review provides an overview of ENaCs and key mechanisms that regulate channel activity. The role of ENaCs in antigen-presenting dendritic cells is discussed, where ENaC-dependent sensing of increases in the extracellular Na+ concentration leads to activation of a signaling cascade, T cell activation with the release of proinflammatory cytokines, and an increase in blood pressure. The potential contribution of this pathway to human hypertension is discussed.
More Related Videos
08:56Demonstration of Proteolytic Activation of the Epithelial Sodium Channel ENaC by Combining Current Measurements with Detection of Cleavage Fragments
Published on: July 5, 2014
06:59A Fluorescence-Based Assay of Membrane Potential for High-Throughput Functional Study of Two Endogenous Ion Channels in Two Epithelial Cell Lines
Published on: June 22, 2022
Related Concept Videos
Transcellular Transport of Solutes
Ion Channels
Ion channels are specialized integral membrane proteins on the plasma membrane that allow...
The Role of Ion Channels in Neuronal Computation
Sometimes a single EPSP is strong enough to induce an action potential in the postsynaptic neuron. However, multiple presynaptic inputs must often create EPSPs around the same time for the postsynaptic neuron to be sufficiently depolarized to fire an action potential....
Non-gated Ion Channels
Compared to the gated ion channels, the non-gated channels, also known as leakage or passive channels, have no gating mechanism....
Voltage-gated Ion Channels
Generally, all voltage-gated ion channels have a 'voltage-sensing domain' that spans the lipid bilayer. The charged residues in the sensor move in response to the membrane potential changes that open the channel allowing ions movement. There are several...
Mechanically-gated Ion Channels