The influence of surfactants on the frog skin ion and water permeability

It is well known that sublethal doses of surfactants affect the cellular adhesion in the superficial layers of the exposed epithelia of aquatic animals, introducing a shunt in the active transport pathway, and that they are adsorbed by the cellular membranes, interacting with proteins and lipids and influencing the ion end water permeabilities. It has also been shown that the electrical behaviour of both the isolated and the “in situ” frog skin is heavily affected and that the isoosmotic, active transport coupled, water flow is abolished. We will propose a model for the toxic action of surfactants, based on the analysis of the decay of the electrical potential difference (pd) and short circuit current (scc), which accounts for the mentioned observations.