The apparent permeability coefficient for proton flux through phosphatidylcholine vesicles is dependent on the direction of flux.

A dioleoylphosphatidylcholine unilamellar vesicle model system was used to determine proton permeability. The fluorescence of the pH reporter group, pyranine, trapped within vesicles with a difference in pH across the bilayer, was digitized and analyzed with numerical integration. When H+ flux was initiated by the acidification of the external buffer (acid jump), the apparent H+ permeability was found to be a linear function of the reciprocal of the internal H+ concentration with the slope inversely proportional to the initial size of the H+ gradient. When flux was initiated by the alkalinization of the external buffer (base jump), the apparent permeability coefficient was constant for each external H+ concentration. However, the value of the apparent permeability was linearly dependent on the reciprocal of the external H+. The possibility that carbonates (carbon dioxide, carbonic acid, bicarbonate and carbonate) could be acting as proton carriers was tested by adding millimolar concentrations of bicarbonate to solutions greatly reduced in carbonates. The slopes of the graphs of apparent permeability coefficient vs. reciprocal H+ were linear functions of added bicarbonate concentration for both acid and base jump conditions. These observations were interpreted in terms of a model suggesting that carbonic acid or carbon dioxide together with bicarbonate was an efficient proton carrier across phospholipid bilayers.