Abstract
GENERAL COMMENTARY article Front. Physiol., 03 March 2011Sec. Renal and Epithelial Physiology https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2011.00006
Highlights
The monumental works of Ussing (1911–2000), starting nearly 65 years ago, ushered in the “age of epithelial ion transport physiology,” which is still flourishing today in numerous epithelial physiology laboratories throughout the world
Palmer and Andersen (2008) paid homage to Ussing by writing “...In a sense the field of epithelial polarity began in 1958 with the Koefoed-Johnsen and Ussing paper.”. The focus of this Commentary is to highlight the classic paper of Hans Ussing in which he used his famous “Little Chamber” and the implementation of the fledgling short-circuit current technique to define the active transport of sodium as the source of electric current across the isolated frog skin (Ussing and Zerahn, 1951)
IMPLICATIONS OF THE 1951 PAPER The initial description of Na+ being the electrical basis of the short-circuit current led Ussing to propose the cellular model for Na+ absorption across the frog skin epithelium which was the subject of his classic 1958 paper (Koefoed-Johnsen and Ussing, 1958)
Summary
The monumental works of Ussing (1911–2000), starting nearly 65 years ago, ushered in the “age of epithelial ion transport physiology,” which is still flourishing today in numerous epithelial physiology laboratories throughout the world. The focus of this Commentary is to highlight the classic paper of Hans Ussing in which he used his famous “Little Chamber” and the implementation of the fledgling short-circuit current technique to define the active transport of sodium as the source of electric current across the isolated frog skin (Ussing and Zerahn, 1951). This single paper introduced a new research direction that has led to our understanding of many cellular models of ion transport physiology in numerous epithelial tissues of the body.
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