Measurement of Electrical Potential across Intact and Isolated Pouch Epithelium of the Hamster

Abstract

Although information concerning the basic physiology of the hamster buccal pouch is lacking, it has been used frequently by dental investigators because of its accessibility and resemblance to human oral epithelium. Because of the inherent limitations of morphologic interpretations, it seemed feasible to investigate the electrical properties of the hamster pouch and evaluate the possibility of correlating the electrical-potential pattern to various systemic and local alterations. The relationship between electrical potential and permeability or ion transport in frog epithelium is well formulated.'Recently, the permeability of inorganic ions, alcohol, and amino acids across the oral mucosa of dogs has been studied.24 The presence of an electrical potential was reported and its possible relationship to the transfer process discussed. In the present study, the electrical potential across the cheek-pouch epithelium of normal hamsters was measured. The effects of age, sex, and time were also assessed. MATERIALS AND METHODSTwenty-four hamsters of the Pee-Dee strain were used: twelve 14-week-old littermates (young group), and 12 animals more than 27 months old (adult group). Sex distribution was equal in both groups. Three young males, 3 young females, 3 adult males, and 3 adult females were chosen randomly and constituted Group I. The remaining animals made up Group II. In Group I, 3 animals of the same sex and age were to be studied on each of 4 consecutive days. In Group II, 4 animals of different sex and age were to be studied on each of 3 alternate days over a total period of 5 days (Table 1). All animals were maintained on a pellet diet* and were kept in an air-conditioned, constant-temperature animal room.The two main experimental groups were similar except for the time span and sequence of potential measurements. With this experimental design, the variables age, sex, and time could be individually assessed to determine their contributions to the variations in the measurements. Time was considered a variable because of the wide range of day-to-day potential measurements obtained in a trial preliminary study.Taken from a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, at the Medical College of Virginia, 1962.