Question

What clues could you use to help determine whether movement of oslutes through the apicl and basolateral cell membranes is passive or active?

Answer 1

Answer:

Clues that can be used to determine whether the movement of solutes through the membrane is passive or active could be the molecule size, membrane potential, and the presence/absence of membrane protein.

Explanation:

Solutes transport through the cellular membrane depends on the solute size, membrane potential, and the presence/absence of integral membrane protein.

There are two types of transport: Active and passive.

-        Passive transport: It does not need energy; it is driven by a chemical potential gradient. Small molecules with no charge are transported through the membrane in a gradient favor, from a high concentration region to a low concentration region. There are two types of passive transport: By simple diffusion (small molecules pass through the membrane by themselves) and by facilitated diffusion (molecules are helped by integral membrane proteins to pass through the membrane). In facilitated diffusion, the helping protein can be a channel protein (hydrophilic pores that allow the molecule to pass with no interaction) or a carrier protein (proteins with mobile parts that suffer modification as the molecule pass to the other side).

-         Active transport: It does need ATP energy to pass the molecule through the membrane, as they have to move against the electrochemical gradient. This kind of transport is always mediated by a carrier protein. These proteins join with the molecules and suffer changes as they pass the solute to the other side of the membrane. An important example of this kind of transport is the sodium-potassium bomb.