Moment analysis of drug disposition in kidney. II: Urine pH‐dependent tubular secretion of tetraethylammonium in the isolated perfused rat kidney

Effects of urine pH on the renal tubular secretion of an organic cation (tetraethylammonium, TEA) and an organic anion (p‐aminohippurate, PAH) were investigated using the isolated erythrocyte‐perfused rat kidney. The method was based on a multiple indicator dilution experiment and noncompartmental moment analysis. Treatment with sodium bicarbonate and sodium dihydrogen phosphate increased and decreased urine pH, respectively, but affected neither the condition of the perfused kidney nor the renal handling of albumin and inulin. In TEA studies, the increase of urine pH prolonged the mean residence time in renal epithelial cells (T̄_cell) and reduced the apparent secretion intrinsic clearance, but did not influence the volume of distribution in the kidney (Vd_drug). The decrease of urine pH did not affect these kinetic parameters. By contrast, PAH secretion was constant against the change of urine pH. Since any change in the basolateral membrane transport is reflected in Vd_drug, the net transport from blood to cells can be regarded as similar under these treatments. On the other hand, the prolonged T̄_cell of TEA with the increased urine pH suggested a slow transport from cells to lumen across the brush‐border membranes. The present results coincide with the hypothetical mechanism that organic cations are secreted via an active transport system, coupled to the countertransport of H⁺ into cells. In conclusion, the present method is useful to separately evaluate the transmembrane transport across both sides of the renal epithelial cells in a morphologically intact kidney.