NMR methods for measuring membrane transport rates

NMR methods for measuring membrane transport rates rely in most cases upon there being a significant transmembrane difference in either the resonance frequency or the NMR relaxation times of the transported species. The first part of this review examines the various factors that can give rise to such differences in cell and vesicle suspensions. The second part provides an introduction to the theory of membrane transport measurements and describes the different ways in which transmembrane differences in NMR parameters have been exploited in monitoring both slow and fast membrane transport processes.