Aortic transmural serum protein transport: effect of concentration, time, and location

The diffusive transport of certain 125I-labeled purified serum proteins, canine (C), human (H), and porcine (P) serum albumin (A), as well as human high-density lipoprotein (HDL), into the isolated deendothelialized intimal-medial thoracic aortic preparation was measured as a function of protein concentration (c0), intimal surface exposure time (T), and location (z) along the vessel at 21 degrees C. Selected proteins were studied in each of 11 canine preparations and 1 porcine preparation. The resulting uptake (M, nmol/cm2) was measured by direct gamma counting of specially excised fixed tissue specimens, and the transmural concentration distributions [c(xi), nmol/cm3] were calculated from electron probe X-ray microanalysis of the silver distributions across specially prepared microautoradiographs. The results showed 1) that the processes associated with the diffusive transport of CA, HA, PA, and HDL into the intimal-medial system are independent of c0, i.e., uptake is proportional to c0, 2) that the uptake of CA for short times appeared to be linear with T 1/2, 3) that the apparent wall-plasma partition coefficient for albumin rangers between 0.1 and 0.2, 4) that the apparent tissue albumin diffusion coefficient is approximately 2.7 X 10(-8) cm2/s, 5) that the transport processes for HA and CA are indistinguishable, 6) that the processes for the transport of HDL are two times slower than those for HA or CA, and 7) that the transport rate for albumin tends to decrease with z.