Action of Na⁺ and K⁺ during action potential propagation.

A typical 70 kg man contains about 90 g of Na and 170 g of K compared with only 5 g of iron and 0.06 g of copper. Sodium ions are found primarily on the outside of cells, being located in blood plasma and in the interstitial fluid which surrounds the cells. These ions participate in the transmission of nerve signals, in regulating the flow of water across cell membranes and in the transport of sugars and amino acids into cells. Sodium and potassium, although so similar chemically, differ quantitatively in their ability to penetrate cell membranes, in their transport mechanisms and in their efficiency to activate enzymes. Thus, potassium ions are the most abundant cations within cell fluids, where they activate many enzymes, participate in the oxidation of glucose to produce ATP and, with sodium, are responsible for the transmission of nerve signals.There is a very considerable variation in the concentration of sodium and potassium ions found on the opposite sides of cell membranes. As a typical example, in blood plasma, sodium is present to the extent of 143 mmolL⁻¹, whereas the potassium level is only 5 mmolL⁻¹ within the red blood cells. These concentrations change to 10 molL^-1(Na⁺) and 105 mmolL⁻¹ (K⁺). These ionic gradients demonstrate that a discriminatory mechanism, called the sodium-potassium pump, operates across the cell membranes which consumes more than one–third of the ATP used by a resting animal and about 15 kg per 24 h in a resting human.