Please do not adjust margins The propensity to facilitate this process was further evidenced after the addition of oleic acid (OA) to the BSA-treated vesicles, which resulted in an increase in pH dissipation rate for all compounds tested (Figure ). This means the H + /Cl -symport process can be at least partially ascribed to a fatty aciddependent pathway. The findings in the cationophore coupled assay indicate that the transporters, after releasing chloride, must deprotonate before moving back through the lipid bilayer due to strong interactions with the phospholipid headgroups in their charge-neutral form. However, this process can be expedited by binding a neutral transporter molecule to a deprotonated fatty acid, which then moves through the lipid bilayer as a complex. This offers an alternative H + /Cl -symport pathway, and accounts for the reduction in the transport rate when trace fatty acids are removed.