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Related Concept Videos

Facilitated Transport01:19

Facilitated Transport

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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...
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Facilitated Transport01:19

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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...
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Diffusion01:12

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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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Diffusion01:21

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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...
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Passive Diffusion: Overview and Kinetics01:17

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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.
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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...
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Membrane Transport Processes Analyzed by a Highly Parallel Nanopore Chip System at Single Protein Resolution
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Ratcheted diffusion transport through crowded nanochannels.

Anna Lappala1, Alessio Zaccone, Eugene M Terentjev

  • 1Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE, U.K.

Scientific Reports
|November 1, 2013
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Molecular transport through nanochannels occurs via ratcheted diffusion. At high particle injection rates, crowding increases resistance, requiring more power for steady-state transport in biological and microfluidic systems.

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Area of Science:

  • Cell Biology
  • Biophysics
  • Microfluidics

Background:

  • Transport through nanochannels is crucial in cell biology, impacting processes like protein and DNA translocation.
  • Ratcheted diffusion describes spontaneous molecule movement, relevant to biological machinery such as bacterial flagella and bacteriophages.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate molecular transport through nanochannels using ratcheted diffusion.
  • To identify distinct transport regimes and analyze the associated forces and energy requirements.

Main Methods:

  • Molecular dynamics simulations were employed to model particle behavior.
  • Statistical theory was utilized to analyze transport dynamics and identify different regimes.

Main Results:

  • Two transport regimes were identified: diffusion-controlled at low injection rates and a crowded regime at higher rates.
  • In the crowded regime, particle density saturates, leading to increased resistance due to osmotic pressure.
  • Steady-state transport requires increasing power consumption, proportional to channel length and transport rate.

Conclusions:

  • Understanding nanochannel transport is vital for biological systems and microfluidics.
  • The study elucidates the physics of ratcheted diffusion, highlighting the impact of particle crowding and osmotic pressure.
  • Energy requirements for overcoming resistance in crowded nanochannels are significant for both biological and engineered systems.