Cell Membrane Diffusion

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Cell membranes are a barrier to most substances, and this property allows materials to be concentrated inside cells, excluded from cells, or simply separated from the outside environment. This is compartmentalisation is essential for life, as it enables reactions to take place that would otherwise be impossible. Eukaryotic cells can also compartmentalise materials inside organelles. Obviously materials need to be able to enter and leave cells, and there are five main methods by which substances can move across a cell membrane: Lipid Diffusion, Osmosis, Passive Transport, Active Transport, and Vesicles.
Lipid Diffusion (or Simple Diffusion), a few substances can diffuse directly through the lipid bilayer part of the membrane. The only substances …show more content…

The transport proteins tend to be specific for one molecule (a bit like enzymes), so substances can only cross a membrane if it contains the appropriate protein. As the name suggests, this is a passive diffusion process, so no energy is involved and substances can only move down their concentration gradient. There are two kinds of transport protein:Channel Proteins form a water-filled pore or channel in the membrane. This allows charged substances (usually ions) to diffuse across membranes. Most channels can be gated (opened or closed), allowing the cell to control the entry and exit of ions.Carrier Proteins have a binding site for a specific solute and constantly flip between two states so that the site is alternately open to opposite sides of the membrane. The substance will bind on the side where it at a high concentration and be released where it is at a low …show more content…

Large molecules (such as proteins, polysaccharides and nucleotides) and even whole cells are moved in and out of cells by using membrane vesicles. Endocytosis is the transport of materials into a cell. Materials are enclosed by a fold of the cell membrane, which then pinches shut to form a closed vesicle. Strictly speaking the material has not yet crossed the membrane, so it is usually digested and the small product molecules are absorbed by the methods above. When the materials and the vesicles are small (such as a protein molecule) the process is known as pinocytosis (cell drinking), and if the materials are large (such as a white blood cell ingesting a bacterial cell) the process is known as phagocytosis (cell

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