Question

A student has placed rabbit cells in a solution containing dissolved oxygen, glucose, calcium ions, water, and sodium ions. which of these molecules do you expect will easily enter into the student's rabbit cells (via simple diffusion)?

Answer 1

The rabbit cell is an animal cell. It has a two layered lipid membrane. The lipid membrane is non-polar in nature and will permit the movement of non-polar substrates across itself. Ions and large charged particles cannot pass across this membrane unless the cell expends its store of energy to facilitate their active transport into the cell. Hence Calcium ions and sodium ions will not diffuse across the rabbit cell membrane, whereas water (uncharged), glucose (polar) and oxygen (uncharged) will diffuse across the lipid membrane.