BIOC40H3 Lecture Notes - Vessel Element, Stoma, Symporter
Document Summary
The biologically regulated movement of molecules and ions from one location to another is known as transport. Plants exchange solutes with their environment and among their tissues and organs. Both local and long-distance transport processes in plants are controlled largely by cellular membranes. Transport must occur across the plasma membrane, which is a thin layer of two lipids (lipid bilayer, each layer is hydrophilic towards the outside and hydrophobic towards the inside, forming a hydrophobic barrier to diffusion) The plasma membrane also detects information about the physical environment, about molecular signals from other cells, and about the presence of invading pathogens and often relays these signals by changes in ion flux across the membrane. It is not simply breaking a bond, the bond is hydrolysed (hydro=water, lysis=to separate), a water molecule has to come in to break this bond. Because the water molecule comes in, some bonds are formed, as well as the bond being broken.
