Physiology Flashcards
(106 cards)
Wy are membranes important?
outer boundary
- controls entry and exit - maintains ion conc - functional differences in cells are to do with the composition of their plasma membrane
What are membranes mainly composed of?
- phospholipids - form complex structures in aqueous solution
- they can twirl vibrate and move about on their own
- cholesterol aids in the stiffening of the cell membrane
What are membranes impermeable to?
- water soluble substance - ions, proteins, sugars are insoluble in hydrophobic membrane core
- small uncharged polar molecules can cross fairly freely (O2 etc)
Why is the lipid bilayer important (3 things)
- forms basic structure of membrane
- hydrophobic barrier serves as a barrier - maintain diff in solute composition and concentrations inside and outside the cell
- responsible for fluidity of membrane - enables cell to change shape
What is the difference between peripheral and integral proteins?
p - not embedded within membrane, adhere tightly to surfaces of PM
I - transmembrane proteins (span lipid bilayer), embedded and linked to a lipid component of the membrane or a fatty acid that links into membrane
What are some functions of integral membrane proteins?
- ligand binding receptors - hormone receptors
- adhesion molecules - regulating cell shape and growth, pores and channels (conduits that allow ions to flow), carriers (facilitate or transport a molecule to other solutes) and pumps (energy from ATP to drive the transport)
can also be enzymes
docking marker acceptors - interact with secretory vesicles leading to exocytosis
What is the glycocalyx?
- a layer of glycoproteins and glycolipids
- small amount of membrane carb is located on the outer surface of cells (sugar coating)
Why is the glycocalyx important?
self identity markers - important in cell to cell interactions and in tissue growth - cancer cells have abnormal surface markings
What are some specialised cell junctions that are linked?
tight, desmosomes and gap junctions
- tight junctions - join lateral edges of epithelial cells near their lumen (tight or leaky)
- desmosomes - adhering junctions that anchor cells together especially in stretch - skin heart
- gap junctions - communicating junctions - allow movement of ions and small molecules between cells
What are the two things that influence whether a particle can permeate the plasma membrane or not
- solubility of particle
- the size
How can molecules or ions penetrate membrane passively?
- diffusion down a concentration gradient
- movement along an electrical gradient
What makes up fick’s law of diffusion?
- magnitude of concentration gradient
- surface area of the membrane across which the diffusion is taking place
- lipid solubility of the substance
- molecular weight of the substance
- distance through which diffusion must take place
How are ions affected by electrical charge?
- move passively along their electrochemical gradient
- electrical gradient is created when there is a difference in charge in two areas, moves towards area of opposite charge
- move through ion-specific channel proteins (leak or gated)
Define osmosis:
- net diffusion of water down its own concentration gradient through a selectively permeable membrane
- permeate more than expected through aquaporins (water channels)
What is osmolarity?
concentration of osmotically active particles in a solution
tonicity?
what is hypotonic
what is hypertonic
- effect a solution has on cell volume - (iso, hypo, hypertonic) eg isotonic saline that have the same electrolytes as the plasma in the human body
- hypotonic - water diffuses into the cell and causes swelling
- hypertonic - water diffuses out of cell and the cell starts to shrink
What are some passive transport mechanisms?
- diffusion down concentration gradients (simple diffusion)
- movement along electrical gradients (ion channels)
- osmosis - dependant on size and lipid solubility
poorly lipid soluble polar molecules - glucose + amino acids - iosn have to be transported against conc gradient
- What are the two different mechanisms for selective transport
carrier-mediated transport or vesicular transport
What is carrier mediated transport and state 3 important characteristics of this
- substance binds onto a specific carrier which undergoes a conformational change to transport the substance
- can take 2 forms active or passive (facilitated)
- faciliated uses a carrier to help move the substance down a conc gradient
- active transport requires energy
- 1 - specificity
- 2 - saturation (transport maximum)
- 3 - competition
how does facilitated diffusion work?
- enters protein and binds
- flips protein 180 so binding site is facing the low conc - goes back to normal
How does active transport work?
- primary - direct use of energy
- carrier splits up ATP into ADP and P, P binds to carrier to increase affinity, ions binds to carrier which flips the site and releases the ion and the P
- secondary - uses second hand energy from ion concentration gradients
What is the energy used to drive Na+ potassium pump also used for?
energy used to drive pump indirectly serves as the energy source for secondary active transport
What is the definition of secondary active transport?
The transfer of a solute across the membrane is always coupled with the transfer of the ion that supplies the driving force
what are the mechanisms involved?
- symport - solute and NA move in the same direction
- antiport - solute and Na move in opposite directions