Regulation of intracellular creatine in erythrocytes and myoblasts: influence of uraemia and inhibition of Na,K-ATPase.

The regulation of intracellular creatine concentration in mammalian cells is poorly understood, but is thought to depend upon active sodium-linked uptake of creatine from extracellular fluid. In normal human erythrocytes, creatine influx into washed cells was inhibited by 40 per cent in the absence of extracellular sodium. In washed cells from uraemic patients, sodium-independent creatine influx was normal, whereas the sodium-dependent component of creatine influx was 3.3 times higher than normal, possibly reflecting the reduced mean age of uraemic erythrocytes. In spite of this, the intracellular creatine concentration was no higher than normal in uraemic erythrocytes, implying that some factor in uraemic plasma in vivo inhibits sodium-dependent creatine influx. Both in normal and uraemic erythrocytes, the creatine concentration was 10 times that in plasma, and the concentration in the cells showed no detectable dependence on that in plasma, suggesting that the intracellular creatine concentration is controlled by an active saturable process. Active sodium-dependent accumulation of creatine was also demonstrated in L6 rat myoblasts and was inhibited when transport was measured in the presence of 10(-4) M ouabain or digoxin, implying that uptake was driven by the transmembrane sodium gradient. However, when creatine influx was measured immediately after ouabain or digoxin had been washed away, it was higher than in control cells, suggesting that Na,K-ATPase and/or sodium-linked creatine transport are up-regulated when treated with inhibitors of Na,K-ATPase.