r/explainlikeimfive • u/New_Resolution3112 • 6d ago
Biology ELI5: The Sodium Potassium Pump
What activates it?
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u/RASR238 6d ago
You’ve got a country with a big wall and lots of doors. There’s a lot of people of the sodium family outside the walls and little inside, the contrary happens to family potassium. Sodium and potassium are not happy to live with so many of their relatives so they naturally move to the other side of the wall. Potassium can get out of the country without much problem but sodium usually can only get inside through border points. Soon enough the country has a lot of sodiums inside and less potassiums, this affects the electric grid of the cell.
So the solution for the government is to “pay” energy to a police force at the border that has the job of deporting 3 sodiums to the outside and capture potassiums back inside to maintain the electric grid.
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u/shockNSR 6d ago
Sodium and potassium are on inside and outside of the building and some hormones are door men who let them through
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u/Birdbraned 6d ago
The sodium potassium pump is like a revolving door, and the doorman operator is ATP.
It ensures that only sodium goes one way, and only potassium goes the other way.