Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 19, 2026

Measuring the Osmotic Water Permeability Coefficient (Pf) of Spherical Cells: Isolated Plant Protoplasts as an Example
14:20

Measuring the Osmotic Water Permeability Coefficient (Pf) of Spherical Cells: Isolated Plant Protoplasts as an Example

Published on: October 8, 2014

THE KINETICS OF OSMOTIC SWELLING IN LIVING CELLS

M McCutcheon1, B Lucke

  • 1Laboratory of Pathology, School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole.

The Journal of General Physiology
|October 30, 2009
PubMed

More Related Videos

Monitoring the Effect of Osmotic Stress on Secretory Vesicles and Exocytosis08:08

Monitoring the Effect of Osmotic Stress on Secretory Vesicles and Exocytosis

Published on: February 19, 2018

Estimation of Structural Sensitivity of Intrinsically Disordered Regions in Response to Hyperosmotic Stress in Living Cells Using FRET05:13

Estimation of Structural Sensitivity of Intrinsically Disordered Regions in Response to Hyperosmotic Stress in Living Cells Using FRET

Published on: January 12, 2024

Related Concept Videos

Osmosis00:47

Osmosis

Approximately 60% to 95% of the weight of living organisms is attributed to water. Therefore, maintaining appropriate water balance within cells is of paramount importance. Osmosis is the movement of water across a semipermeable membrane, such as a cell’s plasma membrane. In living organisms, water plays a crucial role as a solvent—a molecule that dissolves other molecules.Diffusion Versus OsmosisBoth diffusion and osmosis are types of passive transport—cellular transport that does not require...
Osmosis01:30

Osmosis

Osmosis is the movement of free water molecules through a semipermeable membrane.  The water's concentration gradient across the membrane is inversely proportional to the solutes' concentration. Whereas diffusion transports material across membranes and within cells, osmosis transports only water across a membrane, and the membrane limits the diffusion of solutes in the water. Osmosis is a special case of diffusion.
Water, like other substances, moves from a high concentration of free water...
Tonicity in Animals01:16

Tonicity in Animals

Tonicity describes the amount of solute in a solution. The measure of the tonicity of a solution, or the total amount of solutes dissolved in a specific amount of solution, is called its osmolarity. Three terms—hypotonic, isotonic, and hypertonic—are used to relate the osmolarity of a cell to the osmolarity of the extracellular fluid that contains the cells. In a hypotonic solution, such as tap water, the extracellular fluid has a lower concentration of solutes than the fluid inside the cell,...
Tonicity in Animals00:59

Tonicity in Animals

The tonicity of a solution determines if a cell gains or loses water in that solution. The tonicity depends on the permeability of the cell membrane for different solutes and the concentration of nonpenetrating solutes in the solution within and outside of the cell. If a semipermeable membrane hinders the passage of some solutes but allows water to follow its concentration gradient, water moves from the side with low osmolarity (i.e., less solute) to the side with higher osmolarity (i.e.,...
Osmosis and Osmotic Pressure of Solutions02:40

Osmosis and Osmotic Pressure of Solutions

A number of natural and synthetic materials exhibit selective permeation, meaning that only molecules or ions of a certain size, shape, polarity, charge, and so forth, are capable of passing through (permeating) the material. Biological cell membranes provide elegant examples of selective permeation in nature, while dialysis tubing used to remove metabolic wastes from blood is a more simplistic technological example. Regardless of how they may be fabricated, these materials are generally...
Factors Influencing Microbial Growth: Osmolarity01:28

Factors Influencing Microbial Growth: Osmolarity

Osmolarity is the measure of solute concentration in a solution. It plays a critical role in determining water availability for organisms. Water moves across semipermeable membranes through osmosis, flowing from regions of lower solute concentration (more dilute) to regions of higher solute concentration (more concentrated).In high-solute environments, microbial cells lose water, leading to dehydration and inhibited growth. The extent to which water is available to microbes in such environments...