Effect of verapamil and anesthetics on the level of sodium and potassium ions in frog muscles. Role of hydrophobic interactions

: Verapamil, general and local anesthetics influences on ionic contents of frog sartorius and cardiac muscles in respect with these drugs hydrophobicity were studied to clarify the role of verapamil hydrophobic interactions in its physiological activity. It was found that concentration thresholds of the agents toxicities were linearly linked with their hydrophobicity (in logarithmic scale). This relationship provides support for our conclusion that verapamil, general and some local anesthetics are the members of a single drug family. It is a reason to believe that a hydrophobic mechanism of general anesthetic action on cellular structure is the same as a mechanism of verapamil activity in muscles. It is possible that verapamil is accepted as medical drug exactly due to optimum combination of high verapamil hydrophobicity with its structural complementarity to receptor site responsible for use-dependent channel blocking.