“…Such cotransport is one of the most common in the animal kingdom. It has indeed been found in vertebrates, for which three families of Na/P i symporters have been characterized (Markovich, 2010;Virkki et al, 2007), in marine invertebrates, such as the mollusc Aplysia californica (Gerencser et al, 2002) and the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus (Schneider, 1985), and in the phycomycete Thraustochytrium roseum (Siegenthaler et al, 1967;Siegenthaler et al, 1966) and the cyanobacteria Anabaena (Valiente and Avendano, 1993). Although the use of 0Na ASW can theoretically lead to the inhibition of all sodium-dependent co-transports, which includes some amino acids, glucose, lactate and protons (Preston, 1993;Scott, 1987), and therefore alter the cell physiology over the course of long-term experiments, it is likely that during short-term incubations, as used in the present study (less than 2h), the primary effect of the absence of sodium in the external medium is the direct cis-inhibition of substrate transport.…”