Ion transport across the isolated intestinal mucosa of the winter flounder, Pseudopleuronectes americans: II. effects of cyclic AMP.

Addition of cyclic AMP and theophylline to the intestinal mucosa of the winter flounder, Pseudopleuronectes americanus decreased short-circuit current and net Na and Cl absorption and increased total conductance and the serosa-to-mucosa unidirectional Cl flux (JsmCl). The last two changes were independent of the original rate of NaCl absorption and persisted even when net absorption of Na and Cl had been abolished by ouabain. Voltage clamp experiments revealed that the increment in JsmCl produced by cyclic AMP is PD-insensitive and therefore not due to an increase in the Cl conductance of the paracellular shunt. Cyclic AMP appears, therefore, both to inhibit net NaCl absorption and to increase the Cl permeability and total conductance of the intestinal epithelial cells; its failure to stimulate secretion (in contrast to its action on mammalian intestine) may be related to the absence of crypts in flounder intestinal epithelium.