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Related Concept Videos

Drug Absorption Mechanism: Passive Membrane Transport01:23

Drug Absorption Mechanism: Passive Membrane Transport

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Passive transport is a method of drug absorption where small, lipid-soluble drugs can move across the cell membrane. This movement happens along the concentration gradient, which is a natural flow from higher to lower concentration areas. The speed at which the drug moves is directly related to its lipid–water partition coefficient. This means that the more a drug dissolves in lipids, the faster it diffuses or spreads throughout the body. It is important to note that most drugs are either...
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Passive Diffusion: Overview and Kinetics01:17

Passive Diffusion: Overview and Kinetics

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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.
When administered orally, drugs establish a substantial concentration gradient between the gastrointestinal (GI) lumen and the bloodstream, expediting...
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The Significance of Membrane Transport01:44

The Significance of Membrane Transport

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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...
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Diffusion01:12

Diffusion

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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

Diffusion

7.3K
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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Pore Transport and Ion-Pair Transport01:17

Pore Transport and Ion-Pair Transport

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Pore transport and ion-pair formation are critical mechanisms for the absorption and distribution of drugs in the body.
Pore transport, also known as convective transport, is a process where small molecules like urea, water, and sugars rapidly cross cell membranes as though there were channels or pores in the membrane. Although direct microscopic evidence is limited  but the concept of pores or channels is widely accepted based on physiological evidence. Despite the lack of direct...
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 29, 2026

A Method for Determination and Simulation of Permeability and Diffusion in a 3D Tissue Model in a Membrane Insert System for Multi-well Plates
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Passive Membrane Permeability: Beyond the Standard Solubility-Diffusion Model.

Giulia Parisio1, Matteo Stocchero2, Alberta Ferrarini1

  • 1Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche, Università di Padova , Via Marzolo 1, 35131 Padova, Italy.

Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation
|November 24, 2015
PubMed
Summary

Understanding solute diffusion across lipid bilayers is complex. This study proposes a new model describing membrane translocation as diffusion on a free energy surface, enhancing theoretical predictions for solute permeability.

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Area of Science:

  • Biophysics
  • Computational Chemistry
  • Membrane Transport

Background:

  • Spontaneous solute diffusion across lipid bilayers presents theoretical challenges.
  • Unbiased molecular dynamics simulations struggle to capture permeation mechanisms and timescales.
  • The standard solubility-diffusion model offers a simplified, monodimensional view of translocation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To address limitations of the standard solubility-diffusion model for solute transport across lipid bilayers.
  • To propose a more comprehensive model for membrane translocation.
  • To provide a mechanistic interpretation of solute permeability.

Main Methods:

  • Developed a generalized model describing membrane translocation as diffusion on a multidimensional free energy surface.
  • Incorporated translational and rotational degrees of freedom into the diffusion model.
  • Derived simple expressions for the permeability coefficient under specific conditions.

Main Results:

  • The proposed model offers a more general description of membrane translocation.
  • Under conditions of fast solute reorientation, the classical solubility-diffusion equation is recovered.
  • A mechanistic interpretation of permeability is provided based on free energy landscape minima and permeation paths.

Conclusions:

  • The generalized free energy surface diffusion model enhances the understanding of solute transport across lipid bilayers.
  • This approach accounts for orientational and conformational motions, improving upon the monodimensional solubility-diffusion model.
  • The model provides a framework for analyzing solute permeability by considering all possible translocation pathways.