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Related Concept Videos

Cellular Membranes and Drug Transport01:24

Cellular Membranes and Drug Transport

Drugs must traverse multiple biological barriers, such as multi-layered skin, single-layered intestinal epithelium, and the plasma membrane, to reach their target sites within the body. The plasma membrane, a highly structured composite of phospholipids, carbohydrates, and proteins, is the cell's protective boundary, facilitating selective substance exchange.
Phospholipids arrange themselves into a bilayer, with hydrophilic heads oriented outward and hydrophobic tails facing inward.
The Significance of Membrane Transport01:44

The Significance of Membrane Transport

The transport of solutes across the cell membrane is essential for metabolic processes, like maintaining cell size and volume, generating the action potential, exchanging nutrients and gases, etc. Membrane transport can be either passive or active. It can be simple diffusion, facilitated, or mediated transport aided by transport proteins such as transporters and channels.
Transporters facilitate either an active or passive movement of solutes. They can allow a single-molecule transport down its...
Facilitated Diffusion01:16

Facilitated Diffusion

The plasma membrane, a critical structure in cellular biology, houses an array of transporters, or carrier proteins, interspersed within its lipid bilayer. These proteins play a crucial role in solute transport through facilitated diffusion, a form of passive diffusion that uses transporters to move the molecules across the membrane.
In this process, substrates such as organic compounds and ions interact with a transporter on one side, triggering conformational changes in proteins that enable...
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...
Membrane Domains01:18

Membrane Domains

The membrane domains concentrate specific lipids and proteins at one place within the membrane, which helps in cell signaling, adhesion, and other critical cellular processes. These domains can differ in size, composition, function, and lifespan.
Protein Domains
The membrane comprises a group of distinct proteins responsible for carrying out a cell's specific function. For example, the plasma membrane of the human sperm, or a single germ cell, contains a unique set of proteins in the anterior...
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...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 10, 2026

Models and Methods to Evaluate Transport of Drug Delivery Systems Across Cellular Barriers
18:57

Models and Methods to Evaluate Transport of Drug Delivery Systems Across Cellular Barriers

Published on: October 17, 2013

Selective diffusion barriers separate membrane compartments.

Andreas Bruckbauer1, Paul D Dunne, Peter James

  • 1Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Biophysical Journal
|July 27, 2010
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Sperm membrane domains restrict molecule diffusion. GM1 gangliosides cluster at one interface, while lipids and proteins show slower diffusion across another, indicating distinct membrane barriers.

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Membrane Transport Processes Analyzed by a Highly Parallel Nanopore Chip System at Single Protein Resolution
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Membrane Transport Processes Analyzed by a Highly Parallel Nanopore Chip System at Single Protein Resolution

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Spot Variation Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy for Analysis of Molecular Diffusion at the Plasma Membrane of Living Cells
05:56

Spot Variation Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy for Analysis of Molecular Diffusion at the Plasma Membrane of Living Cells

Published on: November 12, 2020

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 10, 2026

Models and Methods to Evaluate Transport of Drug Delivery Systems Across Cellular Barriers
18:57

Models and Methods to Evaluate Transport of Drug Delivery Systems Across Cellular Barriers

Published on: October 17, 2013

Membrane Transport Processes Analyzed by a Highly Parallel Nanopore Chip System at Single Protein Resolution
11:55

Membrane Transport Processes Analyzed by a Highly Parallel Nanopore Chip System at Single Protein Resolution

Published on: August 16, 2016

Spot Variation Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy for Analysis of Molecular Diffusion at the Plasma Membrane of Living Cells
05:56

Spot Variation Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy for Analysis of Molecular Diffusion at the Plasma Membrane of Living Cells

Published on: November 12, 2020

Area of Science:

  • Cell biology
  • Membrane biophysics
  • Spermatozoa research

Background:

  • Spermatozoa possess highly compartmentalized membrane domains.
  • Understanding molecular exchange between these domains is crucial for fertilization.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate molecular diffusion across sperm head membrane domains.
  • To identify the nature of diffusion barriers within the spermatozoon.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized Alexa Fluor 555-cholera toxin B-subunit to track GM1 gangliosides.
  • Observed diffusion of single lipid and protein molecules across membrane interfaces.

Main Results:

  • GM1 gangliosides clustered and diffused across the anterior acrosome-equatorial segment interface but not into the postacrosome.
  • Single lipid and protein molecules exchanged between all domains, with slower diffusion towards the postacrosome.
  • Identified two types of diffusion interfaces: 'open' and 'mass filter'.

Conclusions:

  • Sperm head membranes exhibit distinct diffusion barriers.
  • A protein-cytoskeleton network likely forms the 'mass filter' interface, regulating molecular traffic.