BIOL 111 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Lipid Bilayer, Vegetable Oil, Membrane Structure

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23 Dec 2019
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The plasma membrane is the boundary that separates. With selective permeability some substances to cross more easily than others. Pulls things it wants and keeps things out it does not want. Molecules don"t commonly flip-flop across the membranes (why is this not energetically favorable: you need a protein to move across, you need atp or energy to flip-flop. Membranes must be fluid to work properly: they are usually about as fluid as salad oil. As temperatures cool, membranes switch from a fluid state to a solid state: at what temperature does the switch occur? (depends on the type of lipid) The steroid cholesterol has different effects on membrane fluidity at different temperature. At warm temperatures (such as 37 c), cholesterol restrains movement of phospholipids. At cool temperatures, it maintains fluidity by preventing tight packing. We think of cholesterol in diet as a bad thing but in cell membranes it is a useful fluidity buffer .

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