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Osmosis

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...

Osmosis

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...

Osmosis and Osmotic Pressure of Solutions

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...

Protein Dynamics in Living Cells

Protein Dynamics in Living Cells

Different fluorescence-based techniques are used to study the protein dynamics in living cells. These techniques include FRAP, FRET, and PET.
Fluorescent recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) is a fluorescent-protein-based detection technique used to quantify protein movement rates within the cell. This method exposes a small portion of the cell to an intense laser beam. The laser beam causes permanent photobleaching of the fluorophore-tagged proteins in the exposed region. As the bleached...

Factors Influencing Microbial Growth: Osmolarity

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...

ATP Driven Pumps I: An Overview

ATP Driven Pumps I: An Overview

ATP-driven pumps, also known as transport ATPases, are integral membrane proteins. They have binding sites for ATP located on the membrane's cytosolic side and the ion-conducting domain in the transmembrane region. These pumps use the free energy released from ATP hydrolysis to move the solutes across cell membranes against an electrochemical gradient.
There are four main types of ATP-driven pumps - P-type, V-type, F-type, and ABC transporter. All these pumps are of varying complexities and are...

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Updated: Jun 19, 2026

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

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

Published on: January 12, 2024

FURTHER STUDIES ON THE KINETICS OF OSMOSIS IN LIVING CELLS.

B Lucké¹, H K Hartline, M McCutcheon

¹Laboratory of Pathology, School of Medicine, the Johnson Foundation for Medical Physics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole.

The Journal of General Physiology

|October 30, 2009

Summary

Sea urchin eggs act as natural osmometers, revealing cell permeability to water is constant initially but greater during water exit (exosmosis) than entry (endosmosis). This finding aids understanding of cell volume regulation.

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Area of Science:

Cell biology
Physiology
Biophysics

Background:

Understanding cell volume regulation is crucial in physiology.
Osmosis and diffusion are fundamental processes governing cell behavior in solutions.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the permeability of Arbacia punctulata eggs to water.
To determine if cell permeability to water is constant during swelling and shrinking.
To compare the rates of water entry (endosmosis) and exit (exosmosis).

Main Methods:

Utilized unfertilized Arbacia punctulata eggs as natural osmometers.
Calculated water permeability based on the rate of cell volume change relative to surface area and osmotic pressure difference.
Measured volume changes in anisotonic solutions over time.

Main Results:

Water permeability, defined as volume change rate per unit surface area per unit osmotic pressure, remained relatively constant for the initial minutes of swelling and shrinking.
Cell permeability to water was independent of the external solution's osmotic pressure.
Water was observed to leave the cells more readily than it entered, indicating higher permeability during exosmosis compared to endosmosis.

Conclusions:

The laws of osmosis and diffusion adequately describe the swelling and shrinking of Arbacia punctulata eggs in anisotonic solutions.
Water permeability of these cells is not constant indefinitely but shows a directional difference between water influx and efflux.
The study provides quantitative insights into the osmotic behavior of marine invertebrate eggs.