Calculation of free-Mg2+ concentration in adenosine 5'-triphosphate containing solutions in vitro and in vivo

We have attempted to resolve the differences between the levels of free Mg2+ in muscle calculated by Wu et al. [Wu, S. T., Pieper, G. M., Salhany, J. M., & Eliot, R. S. (1981) Biochemistry 20, 7399-7403] (2.5 mM in guinea pig heart) and by Gupta and Moore [Gupta, R. K., & Moore, R. D. (1980) J. Biol. Chem. 255, 3987-3993] (0.6 mM in frog skeletal muscle) on the basis of substantially identical measurements by 31P NMR of the phosphate peaks in the spectrum of MgATP2-. The differences depend on the methods of calculation, including which reactions in which multiple equilibria are being considered. Biochemists and physical chemists customarily use different working definitions of the stability constant for MgATP2- in particular. Wu et al. used in their calculations, without reconciliation, methods involving three different operational definitions of the chelation equilibria involved. An algorithm for calculating Mg2+ and total ATP, which can be carried out with a hand calculator, is described here. With it, we calculated Mg2+ levels that agree with those determined by Gupta et al. [Gupta, R. K., Benkovic, J. L., & Rose, Z. B. (1978) J. Biol. Chem. 253, 6165-6171] with their in vitro systems. We therefore agree with the finding of Gupta and Moore that the Mg2+ level in skeletal and cardiac muscle is 0.6 mM.