The kinetics of sodium gradient dependent phosphate uptake by the renal brush border membrane vesicles of the rat have been studied under various conditions of temperature and pH. From 7 to 30 °C the Lineweaver-Burk plots are linear, and the apparent Km progressively increases from 54 to 91 μM. Above 30 °C, the apparent Km continues to increase to reach 135 μM at 40 °C, but a break is observed in the Lineweaver-Burk plots at the substrate concentration of 300 μM. The existence of this break, confirmed by the Eadie-Hofstee plot supports the hypothesis of a dual mechanism of phosphate transport, one for low concentrations of substrate with a Km of 100 μM and the other for high concentrations with a Km of approximately 240 μM. When the two components of the Eadie-Hofstee plot are analyzed according to a nonlinear regression program, these two values of Km become 70 μM and 1.18 mM, respectively. The Vmax continuously increases with temperature. However, the Arrhenius plot (In Vmax vs. 1/Tk) shows an abrupt discontinuity at 23 °C. pH experiments were performed at 35 °C. In the absence of a proton gradient, increasing the pH from 6.5 to 7.5 and 8.5 decreases the apparent Km from 341 to 167 and 94 μM, respectively. When only the divalent form of phosphate is considered as the substrate, the apparent Km does not vary anymore with the pH and remains around the mean value of 105 μM. The uniformity of the apparent Km for the total phosphate uptake, when only the divalent phosphate is considered as being the substrate, suggests that this divalent form is the only one which is transported. Whatever the substrate considered, total phosphate or divalent phosphate, the highest Vmax is obtained at pH 7.5 which probably approximates the optimum pH inside the vesicles for the phosphate uptake.
