Influence of vasopressin and amiloride on shunt pathways of frog skin.

Studies were done to determine the influence of vasopressin and amiloride on the sodium backflux of nonedge-damaged frog skin. As before, the bidirectional fluxes of sodium appeared to be limited primarily to the active transport pathways of control skins. When the skins were treated with vasopressin, the sodium backflux was increased selectively (over that of sucrose) and more so than was expected for the active transportpathway alone. In control skins, amiloride had no effect on the flux of the shunt pathway. However, with vasopressin-treated skins, amiloride at 10(-6) M decreased the sodium backflux of the shunt pathway to levels observed previously for the control skins. These observations are compatible with the idea that the shunt pathway may in part be cellular and in part extracellular. When the changes in open-circuit voltage and shunt resistance caused by vasopressin and amiloride (as determined from the I-V relationships) were examined, the data were also found to be compatible with the idea that vasopressin exerted an influence on the shunt pathway of the frog skin, and this effect of vasopressin could be reversed by amiloride.