Predictions of polarized multilayer theory of solute distribution confirmed from a study of the equilibrium distribution in frog muscle of twenty-one nonelectrolytes including five cryoprotectants.

We determined the equilibrium distribution of twenty-one nonmetabolized nonelectrolytes in frog muscle cells. In all cases, plots of the equilibrium intracellular concentrations of a solute in the cell water against the external concentrations of the solute yielded straight lines in agreement with the prediction of such a rectilinear plot by the polarized multilayer (PM) theory. The slopes of these straight lines yield the equilibrium distribution coefficients or q-value of that solute. It was shown that, again in agreement with the PM theory, the q-values of fourteen nonelectrolytes vary with the molecular volumes of the nonelectrolytes, obeying the "size rule", i.e., the larger the solute, the lower its q-value. The q-values of the remaining seven nonelectrolytes also decrease with their molecular volumes but on a separate curve. These q-value vs. molecular volume plots (q-v plots) show strong resemblance to similar q-v plots of solutes in dialysis sacs containing proteins and polymers assuming the fully-extended conformation (extrovert models) but no, or only weak, resemblance to q-v plots of solutions containing native globular proteins (introvert models). These findings also support the PM theory, according to which some protein(s) pervasively present in cells are in the fully-extended conformation; and that these fully extended cell protein(s) polarize(s) in multilayers all or virtually all cell water. The relationship between the q-values of the nonelectrolytes and the solutes' respective molecular volume are described by two sets of theoretical curves, calculated from an equation introduced in the preceding paper. Both curves were computed on the basis of the same exclusion intensity (Uvp = 126 cal/mole). This factor measures the extra water-to-water interaction of the polarized water which acts to keep solute out of the cell water in degree according to the size of the solute. The two curves are computed on the basis of two different values of U(s), which represents the surface or solute component of the polarization energy, describing the affinity of the solute for the dynamic water structure: one curve which roughly predicts the q-value of fourteen of the nonelectrolytes studied was computed with a U(s) equal to 119 cal/mole. The second curve which roughly predicts the q-value of the remaining seven solutes was computed on the basis of a higher U(s) (156 cal/mole).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)