Abstract
The endothelial cells of microvessels form the critical barrier controlling the material exchange between the circulating blood and the body tissues. Recent experimental studies have shown that for similar size globular proteins, the microvessel permeability to positively charged proteins was much larger than that of negatively charged proteins. As a basis to investigate the mechanism of the charge effect on the microvessel permeability, we developed an electrostatic model of the transport of charged solutes through small cylindrical pores, and evaluated the permeability coefficient and the reflection coefficient, by taking into account the interaction between the surface charges of the solute and pore. It was found that even for small Debye length compared to the pore radius, the surface charge of the pore could significantly retard the transport of charged solutes with the same sign.
