Each cell in the human body is wrapped in a membrane that separates the inner environment and
outer environment, and positively and negatively charged ions aren’t equally distributed on both
sides of the membrane.
Fundamentally, it’s these differences in concentration and charge as well as permeability across the
membrane that establishes the cell’s resting membrane potential.
Generally speaking there is a higher concentration of Na+ or sodium, Cl- or chloride, and Ca2+ or
calcium on the outside of a cell, and a higher concentration of (K+) or potassium and (A-), which is
just what we just write for negatively charged anions, on the inside of a cell.
These anions include a variety of amino acids and proteins that are produced by the cell.
Let’s start with the sodium-potassium pump which uses ATP to move three sodium ions out of the
cell for every 2 potassium ions that it moves into the cell, this is the workhorse of the cell and it
helps establish the concentration gradient for potassium and sodium.
Let’s focus on potassium, which has a concentration of 150 mMol/L on the inside of the cell and
about 5 mMol/L on the outside of the cell.
With so much potassium within the cell relative to outside the cell, there will be fairly strong
concentration gradient moving potassium ions out of the cell.
Although these ions can’t simply diffuse through the phospholipid bilayer membrane, it turns out
that potassium can get across the membrane using potassium leak channels and inward rectifier
channels that are scattered throughout the membrane.
So using those channels, the concentration gradient pushes potassium out of the cell, and that
potassium brings with it some positive charge and leaves behind unpaired anions which carry
negative charge because they aren’t able to go through the leak channels.
Over time as more potassium ions leave the cell, a negative charge builds up within the cell and
this starts to attract positively charged potassium ions back into the cell, and this is called the
electrostatic gradient.
This electrostatic gradient is established with the movement of relatively few ions, so it doesn’t
upset the overall concentration gradient that was already established.
For potassium, the exact point when the potassium moving out of the cell due to the
concentration gradient equals the potassium moving back into the cell due to the electrostatic
gradient is called the equilibrium potential or nernst potential for potassium, and it’s about -92 mV.
In other words, -92 mV is the electric potential for attracting potassium into the cell that is needed
to balance the concentration gradient that is pushing potassium out of the cell.
So the equilibrium potential of an ion is dependent on two things: the concentration gradient for
the ion and the cell being permeable to that ion.
If we’re only dealing with a single ion, then the equilibrium potential for the ion equals the resting
membrane potential for the cell.
In reality, though, there are multiple ions that have concentration gradients and are permeable
across the cell membrane, each of which has its own equilibrium potential.
Now the formula that tells us the equilibrium potential for each ion called the Nernst equation,
and it’s Vm (for membrane) equals 61.5 times the log of the concentration of the ion outside the
cell, divided by the concentration of the ion inside the cell, for an ion with a single charge like
sodium, and Vm equals 30.75 times the log the concentration of the ion outside divided by the
concentration of the ion inside for an ion with a double charge like calcium.
For the four main ions that affect the cell’s resting membrane potential, which are potassium,
sodium, chloride, and calcium, the concentrations are 150 mMol/L, 10 mMol/L, and 4 mMol/L, and
less than 1μMol/L on the inside of the cell, and 5 mMol/L, 142 mMol/L, and 103 mMol/L, 5
mMol/L on the outside of the cell.
Plugging those into the formula, we get equilibrium potentials of -92 mV, +67 mV, 86 mV, and +123
mV.
One thing to note, though, is that since chloride ion is negative, the equilibrium potential actually
gets flipped, so it’s actually -86 mV.
These all represent the charge in the cell needed to balance the movement of each of these ions
based on the concentration gradients, and to make it clear the concentration gradients themselves
are potassium moving out, calcium moving in, sodium moving in, and chloride moving in, since
remember there’s low concentration of potassium outside the cell, but high concentration of
calcium, sodium, and chloride outside the cell, and concentration gradients move from high
concentration to low concentration.
Alright, so the actual resting membrane potential of the cell will end up being somewhere in
between all these individual membrane potentials, depending on how much of each of these ions
is moving across the membrane at a given time.
This differs depending on the cell that we’re talking about, but in general potassium makes up the
biggest proportion of ions moving across the membrane, while the other three have way less
moving across at any given time.
Alright so of all the ions moving across the cell membrane through leak channels, let’s say that 90%
of them are potassium ions, whereas only 1% are calcium ions, 1% are sodium ions, 8% are
chloride ions.
Now we can take these proportions and multiply them by the equilibrium potentials and then add
up the total to get the resting membrane potential of the cell.
In this case it works out to 90% of -90mV (-81 mV) plus 1% of 123 mV or 1.23 mV, plus 1% of 67 mV
which is 0.67 mV, and plus 8% of -86mV which is -6.88mV, which gives a grand total resting
membrane potential of -86 mV.
Now this resting membrane potential is usually closest to whichever ion is most permeable across
the membrane, which in this case is potassium, right?
But by changing the cell’s permeability to ions by adding or removing ion channels, a cell can
actually change its resting membrane potential.
Summary
Okay, as a quick recap, an ion’s equilibrium potential is the point where its concentration gradient
equals its electrostatic gradient, and can be calculated using the Nernst equation.
The cell’s resting membrane potential is therefore a summation of each individual ion’s equilibrium
potential, depending on each ion’s relative permeability.
Summary
The resting membrane potential (RMP) is the electrical potential difference across the plasma
membrane of a cell when the cell is at rest and not undergoing any significant electrical activity.
This potential difference is created by the unequal distribution of ions across the membrane, with
positively charged ions (such as sodium and calcium) being more concentrated outside the cell and
negatively charged ions (such as chloride and potassium) being more concentrated inside the cell.
Each ion has its own equilibrium potential, which is determined by the Nernst equation. It states
that an ion's resting membrane potential (Vm) equals 61.5 times the log of the concentration of
the ion outside the cell, divided by the concentration of the ion inside the cell, for an ion with a
single charge like sodium, and Vm equals 30.75 times the log the concentration of the ion outside
divided by the concentration of the ion inside for an ion with a double charge like calcium.
Vm = 61.5Log [ION]out[ION]in for single charged ions (E.g. Na+) Vm = 30.75Log [ION]out[ION]in for
double charged ions (E.g. Ca2+) The cell's resting membrane potential will therefore be the
summation of each individual ion's equilibrium potential.
