Sodium-dependent and -independent choline uptake by type II epithelial cells from rat lung

The uptake of 3H-labeled choline by a suspension of isolated type II epithelial cells from rat lung has been studied in a Ringer medium. Uptake was linear for 4 min at both 0.1 microM and 5.0 microM medium choline; at 5 microM, only 10% of the label was recovered in a lipid fraction. Further experiments were conducted at the low concentration (0.1 microM), permitting characterization of the properties of high-affinity systems. Three fractions of choline uptake were detected: (i) a sodium-dependent system that was totally inhibited by hemicholinium-3 (HC-3); (ii) a sodium-independent uptake, when Na+ was replaced by Li+, K+ or Mg2+, inhibited by HC-3; (iii) a residual portion persisting in the absence of Na+ and unaffected by HC-3. Choline uptake was sigmoidally related to the medium Na+ concentration. Kinetic properties of the uptake of 0.1 microM 3H-choline in the presence and absence of medium Na+ were examined in two ways. (a) Inhibition by increasing concentrations of unlabeled choline (0.5-100 microM) was consistent with the presence of two Michaelis-Menten-type systems in the presence of Na+; a Na(+)-dependent portion (a mean of 0.52 of the total) had a K(m) for choline of 1.5 microM while K(m) in the absence of Na+ (Li+ substituting) was 18.6 microM. (b) Inhibition by HC-3 (0.3-300 microM) gave Ki values of 1.7 microM and 5.0 microM HC-3 for the Na(+)-dependent and -independent fractions. The apparent K(m) of the Na(+)-dependent uptake is lower than that reported previously for lung-derived cells and is in the range of the K(m) values reported for high-affinity, Na(+)-dependent choline uptake by neuronal cells.