Transport across epithelia: A kinetic evaluation

Compartmental analysis of three models for solute transport across epithelial tissue is presented. The simplest model describes only one tissue compartment, the second incorporates the notion of a pore as a parallel pathway and the third model introduces a serial compartment corresponding to non-epithelial portions of the tissue. Experimental data were obtained, using a modified Ussing and Zerahn technique ((1951) Acta Physiol. Scand. 23, 110–127), for salicylate transport across rat jejunum in vitro and analyzed in terms of these three models. The conclusions based solely on the mathematical analysis of this rather simple experiment are: the tissue is not a homogeneous penetration barrier as often considered. Transport is not limited by unstirred layers either at the tissue surfaces or within the tissue itself. Salicylate is not passively transported. Parallel transport pathways do exist.