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Biophysical Endocrinology Unit, Department of Physics as Applied to Medicine, Middlesex Hospital Medical School, London, W1P 6DB

(Received 6 February 1978)

Steroid secretion by the zona glomerulosa is extremely sensitive to changes in the extracellular concentration of potassium ions ([K⁺]). The manner in which a change in [K⁺] is transmitted to the steroidogenic mechanism is not known, but recent data have shown that the flux of ⁴⁵Ca²⁺ is altered during such stimulation (Mackie, Warren & Simpson, 1978). More detailed information concerning ion and hormone dynamics during stimulation may be obtained from studies involving the superfusion of dispersed cells.

The 'centrifuge' procedure (Schulster & Jenner, 1975) could not be applied successfully to zona glomerulosa cells; during the first 15 min 50% of the cells were lost, with a subsequent loss of 10% of the original number of cells/h. Thus the alternative 'cell-column' procedure (Lowry & McMartin, 1974) was evaluated and two