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Related Concept Videos

Diffusion01:12

Diffusion

Diffusion is the passive movement of substances down their concentration gradients—requiring no expenditure of cellular energy. Substances, such as molecules or ions, diffuse from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration in the cytosol or across membranes. Eventually, the concentration will even out, with the substance moving randomly but causing no net change in concentration. Such a state is called dynamic equilibrium, which is essential for maintaining overall...
Diffusion01:21

Diffusion

Diffusion is a type of passive transport. In passive transport, a substance tends to move from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration until the concentration is equal across the space. For example, take the diffusion of substances through the air. When someone opens a perfume bottle in a room filled with people, the perfume is at its highest concentration in the bottle and is at its lowest at the edges of the room. The perfume vapor will diffuse, or spread away, from the...
Facilitated Transport01:19

Facilitated Transport

The chemical and physical properties of plasma membranes cause them to be selectively permeable. Since plasma membranes have both hydrophobic and hydrophilic regions, substances need to be able to transverse both regions. The hydrophobic area of membranes repels substances such as charged ions. Therefore, such substances need special membrane proteins to cross a membrane successfully. In  facilitated transport, also known as facilitated diffusion, molecules and ions travel across a membrane via...
Facilitated Transport01:19

Facilitated Transport

The chemical and physical properties of plasma membranes cause them to be selectively permeable. Since plasma membranes have both hydrophobic and hydrophilic regions, substances need to be able to transverse both regions. The hydrophobic area of membranes repels substances such as charged ions. Therefore, such substances need special membrane proteins to cross a membrane successfully. In facilitated transport, also known as facilitated diffusion, molecules and ions travel across a membrane via...
Protein Diffusion in the Membrane01:24

Protein Diffusion in the Membrane

Proteins show rotational as well as lateral diffusion across the membrane. The lateral diffusion of proteins was confirmed through the cell fusion experiment where mouse and human cells were fused, resulting in hybrid cells. When the human and mouse cells fused, the specific membrane proteins on human and mouse cells were marked with the red and green-fluorescent markers, respectively. Initially, the red and green fluorescence was located on the respective hemisphere of the cell. As time...
Passive Diffusion: Overview and Kinetics01:17

Passive Diffusion: Overview and Kinetics

Passive diffusion is a critical process that allows small lipophilic drugs to cross the cell membrane along a concentration gradient. This mechanism's efficiency depends on four primary factors: the membrane's surface area, the drug's lipid-water partition coefficient, the concentration gradient, and the membrane's thickness.
When administered orally, drugs establish a substantial concentration gradient between the gastrointestinal (GI) lumen and the bloodstream, expediting their diffusion into...

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Planar Gradient Diffusion System to Investigate Chemotaxis in a 3D Collagen Matrix
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Concentration dependent diffusion of self-propelled rods.

Arshad Kudrolli1

  • 1Department of Physics, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts 01610, USA.

Physical Review Letters
|April 7, 2010
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Self-propelled rods exhibit persistent random motion, with diffusion properties affected by area fraction. Steric interactions lead to caging and slower speeds at higher densities.

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Area of Science:

  • Physics
  • Soft Matter Physics
  • Statistical Mechanics

Background:

  • Self-propelled rods (SPR) are model systems for studying active matter dynamics.
  • Understanding diffusion in confined or crowded environments is crucial for active matter systems.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the persistent random motion of SPR.
  • To analyze the influence of steric interactions and area fraction on SPR diffusion properties.

Main Methods:

  • Fabrication of SPR with spherocylindrical heads and beaded chain tails.
  • Observation of SPR motion on a vibrated substrate.
  • Analysis of mean square displacement (MSD) and direction autocorrelations.
  • Application of a tube model to describe propagation speed and diffusion.

Main Results:

  • MSD grows linearly with time at low area fractions, transitioning to caging at higher fractions.
  • Direction autocorrelations decay slower with increasing area fraction.
  • SPR propagation speed decreases with increasing area fraction, described by a tube model.
  • Parallel MSD scales as (lt/tau)^2, while perpendicular MSD shows slower-than-linear growth, consistent with tube confinement.

Conclusions:

  • Steric interactions significantly alter SPR diffusion, leading to caging and reduced mobility.
  • A tube model effectively describes the dynamics of SPR in confined environments.
  • The observed diffusion behavior is consistent with particles confined within a thinning tube.