The cation content of phospholipides from swine erythrocytes.

Phospholipides from swine erythrocytes were isolated and separated into four reproducible fractions. One of the fractions seems to be pure phosphatidylserine. The others are almost certainly not single compounds, although the analytical data indicate that they represent mixtures considerably simpler than the parent mixture extracted from the cells. All four fractions contained Na(+) and K(+), but very little Ca(2+). Sodium was the predominant cation in two of the fractions under all conditions although the major intracellular cation was potassium. In the other two fractions the ratio Na/K varied with the extraction procedure largely because the quantity of K(+) seemed to depend on the solvent system used. There appear to be reasons to believe that the entire system of phospholipides binds Na(+) preferentially. In addition, it was observed that the quantity of Na(+) found in the lipide extracts varied when the extrusion of Na(+) from the cells was made to vary. Both of these observations are consistent with the possibility that the phospholipides play some part in the extrusion of Na(+) from these cells.