Biomedical subjects

D C Mikulecky

Publications and source records attributed to D C Mikulecky.

39 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

PubMed1972

A continuum mechanical approach to the flow equations for membrane transport. I. Water flow.

A concept is presented for modeling flows through membranes using continuum mechanics. Viscous interactions (due to velocity gradients) are explicitly incorporated and position-dependent local water-membrane interactions are taken into account before obtaining slab averages. This is in distinction to other treatments where strictly one-dimensional force balance equations are written using slab average friction coefficients which are really composite functions of local interactions. It is shown that the viscous and other frictional interactions do not simply form linear combinations in the solutions to the equations of motion. Flow profiles for pressure-driven flows ranging from Poiseuille's flow to "diffusion" flow are obtained depending on the strength and extent of the water-membrane interaction. The model is also applied to self-diffusion flows and the measurement of "equivalent pore size." It is shown that for a fixed pore size the ratio of filtration flow to self-diffusion flow for equal driving forces is able to vary over a wide range depending on the water-membrane interaction.

Biological Transport, Active↗

PubMed1970

Determination of urea permeability in red cells by minimum method. A test of the phenomenological equations.

A new method has been developed for measuring the permeability coefficient, omega, of small nonelectrolytes. The method depends upon a mathematical analysis of the time course of cell volume changes in the neighborhood of the minimum volume following addition of a permeating solute to an isosmolal buffer. Coefficients determined by the minimum volume method agree with those obtained using radioactive tracers. omega for urea in human red cells was found to decrease as the volume flow, J(v), into the cell increased. Such behavior is entirely unexpected for a single uniform rate-limiting barrier on the basis of the linear phenomenological equations derived from irreversible thermodynamics. However, the present findings are consonant with a complex membrane system consisting of a tight barrier on the outer face of the human red cell membrane and a somewhat less restrictive barrier behind it closer to the inner membrane face. A theoretical analysis of such a series model has been made which makes predictions consistent with the experimental findings.

Cell Membrane Permeability↗

PubMed1967

On the relative contribution of viscous flow vs. diffusional (frictional) flow to the stationary state flow of water through a "tight" membrane.

The practice of calculating the diffusion contribution to the total pressure-driven flow of water through a tight membrane by using the self-diffusion coefficient for tritiated water is examined by a theoretical analysis. Equations of motion for water and membrane in pressure-driven water flow and water, membrane, and tritiated water in self-diffusion of tritiated water are adapted from Bearman and Kirkwood (1958). These equations of motion are used to develop an equation for the pressure-driven flow of water. Because of the lack of specific information about the detailed structure of most membranes, as well as considerations of the need to eliminate some of the mathematical difficulties, an "equivalent capillary" model is used to find a solution to the equation of motion. The use of the equivalent capillary model and possible ambiguities in distinctions between diffusion and hydrodynamic flow are discussed

Mathematics↗