Biophysical Journal 38: 201-204 (1982)
© 1982 the Biophysical Society

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Average electrostatic potential between the filaments in striated muscle and its relation to a simple Donnan potential.

ABSTRACT

An approximate analytical solution to the Poisson-Boltzmann equation for a cylindrical particle was used to calculate the relationship between the charge on the filaments and the average electrostatic potential. Both thick and then filaments were considered in the muscle lattice with a filament charge ratio of 4 to 1. Comparing this with a similar relationship obtained using simple Donnan theory showed a discrepancy at high charge where the Poisson-Boltzmann equation leads to saturation of the average potential. However, using two separate experiments from the literature, we have shown that at pH 7.0 muscle must not be close to saturation and thus is in a region of the curve where the two approaches agree.