Rat lung type II cell and lamellar body: elemental composition in situ.

We determined the in situ elemental composition of alveolar type II cells (ATII) and lamellar bodies (LB) with electronprobe microanalysis (EPMA) of freeze-dried unstained cryosections (100-200 nm) obtained from lungs frozen in anesthetized rats. Twenty-nine ATII from seven rats were subjected to EPMA. Cytoplasmic (Cyto) composition was the following (in mmol/kg dry wt, mean +/- SE, n = 30): 136 +/- 14.1 Na, 60 +/- 2.8 Mg, 549 +/- 34.8 P, 278 +/- 10.5 S, 158 +/- 7.3 Cl, 525 +/- 26.4 K, and 6.6 +/- 0.9 Ca. LB composition was the following (n = 66): 44 +/- 4.0 Na, 7.9 +/- 0.8 Mg, 1,060 +/- 25.0 P, 79 +/- 4.8 S, 64 +/- 3.6 Cl, 114 +/- 4.1 K, and 30 +/- 0.9 Ca. P and S concentrations were consistent with previous biochemical determinations of phospholipid and protein content of isolated LBs. LBs contain significantly more Ca and less Mg than Cyto. Ca correlated significantly with LB P but not S concentration, and the reported low Ca binding affinity of similar phospholipid mixtures implies a high LB free Ca concentration. Ca was significantly higher in apical and exocytotic LBs compared with those in the perinuclear region. Differences between LB and Cyto monovalent ion concentrations are not entirely due to the difference in hydration revealed by significantly lower K-Cl ratios in LBs. The relative excess of Cl and Ca in LB suggests that these ions may be distributed by active transport systems known to be present in the Golgi apparatus and in Golgi-derived organelles of other cell types.