An electrochemical model of the transport of charged molecules through the capillary glycocalyx

An electrochemical theory of the glycocalyx surface layer on capillary endothelial cells is developed as a model to study the electrochemical dynamics of anionic molecular transport within capillaries. Combining a constitutive relationship for electrochemical transport, derived from Fick's and Ohm's laws, with the conservation of mass and Gauss's law from electrostatics, a system of three nonlinear, coupled, second-order, partial, integro-differential equations is obtained for the concentrations of the diffusing anionic molecules and the cations and anions in the blood. With the exception of small departures from electroneutrality that arise locally near the apical region of the glycocalyx, the model assumes that cations in the blood counterbalance the fixed negative charges bound to the macromolecular matrix of the glycocalyx in equilibrium. In the presence of anionic molecular tracers injected into the capillary lumen, the model predicts the size- and charge-dependent electrophoretic mobility of ions and tracers within the layer. In particular, the model predicts that anionic molecules are excluded from the glycocalyx at equilibrium and that the extent of this exclusion, which increases with increasing tracer and/or glycocalyx electronegativity, is a fundamental determinant of anionic molecular transport through the layer. The model equations were integrated numerically using a Crank-Nicolson finite-difference scheme and Newton-Raphson iteration. When the concentration of the anionic molecular tracer is small compared with the concentration of ions in the blood, a linearized version of the model can be obtained and solved as an eigenvalue problem. The results of the linear and nonlinear models were found to be in good agreement for this physiologically important case. Furthermore, if the fixed-charge density of the glycocalyx is of the order of the concentration of ions in the blood, or larger, or if the magnitude of the anionic molecular valence is large, a closed-form asymptotic solution for the diffusion time can be obtained from the eigenvalue problem that compares favorably with the numerical solution. In either case, if leakage of anionic molecules out of the capillary occurs, diffusion time is seen to vary exponentially with anionic valence and in inverse proportion to the steady-state anionic tracer concentration in the layer relative to the lumen. These findings suggest several methods for obtaining an estimate of the glycocalyx fixed-charge density in vivo.