sodium pump

noun

1. an energy-consuming mechanism in cell membranes that transports sodium ions across the membrane, in exchange for potassium ions or other substances.

Word History and Origins

Origin of sodium pump¹

First recorded in 1960–65

Example Sentences

The researchers compared the genes that serve as blueprints for the sodium pump in poison-resistant species, like the milkweed beetle and the milkweed bug.

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They can tolerate this food source because of a peculiarity in a crucial protein in their bodies, a sodium pump, that the cardenolide toxins usually interfere with.

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In 2012, evolutionary biologist Noah Whiteman, now at the University of California, Berkeley, and a colleague proposed in a commentary that one could answer the question by engineering the monarch sodium pump mutations into fruit flies.

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Some flies had one mutation of three seen in the sodium pump gene of monarchs, and some had combinations.

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First, a mutation of small effect would have altered the structure of the sodium pump to provide some resistance, but also some neurological problems.

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