Biological membranes selectively permeable

Membranes play essential roies in the functions of both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. There is no unicellular or multicellular form of life that does not depend on one or more functional membranes. A number of viruses, the enveloped viruses, also have membranes. Cellular membranes are either known or suspected to be involved in numerous cellular functions, including the maintenance of permeability barriers, transmembrane potentials, active as well as specific passive transport across the membranes, hornione-receptor and transmitter-receptor responses, mitogenesis, and cell-cell recognition. The amount of descriptive material that might be included under the title of biological membranes is encyclopedic. The amount of material that relates or seeks to relate structure and function is less, but still large. For introductory references see Refs. 53, 38, 12, 47, 34, 13. Any survey of this field in the space and time available here is clearly out of the question. For the purposes of the present paper we have selected a rather narrow, specific topic, namely, the lateral diffusion of molecules in the plane of biological mem-branes.38,12,43,34 We consider this topic from the points of view of physical chemistry and immunochemistry. 

Absorption is necessary for the chemical to exert a systemic biological/toxic effect and involves crossing membranes. Membranes are semipermeable phospholipid/protein bilayers. The phospholipids and proteins are of variable structure, and the membrane is selectively permeable. The physicochemical characteristics of foreign molecules that are important include size/shape, lipid solubility, structure, and charge/polarity. 

Prognosis of a compounds permeability should be made stressing limitations of the model. There is no bioavailability prognosis from in vitro data - a cellular assay can provide only permeability potential through a biological membrane. The membrane, in most cases CACO-2 cells, is very similar to what we observe in vivo in the small intestine and resembles many characteristics to in vivo enterocytes. CACO-2 cells can be used for prediction of different pathways across intestinal cells. Best correlation occurs for passive transcellular route of diffusion. Passive paracellular pathway is less permeable in CACO-2 and correlations are rather qualitative than quantitative for that pathway. CACO-2 cells are an accepted model for identification of compounds with permeability problems, for ranking of compounds and selection of best compounds within a series. Carrier-mediated transport can be studied as well using careful characterization of transporters in the cell batch or clone as a prerequisite for transporter studies. 

In living cells, water moves by osmosis across membranes between cells or between membrane-enclosed compartments within an individual cell. All biological membranes are considered selectively permeable since they are highly permeable to water but much less permeable to other substances, such as ions, proteins, and other solutes dissolved in the cell. Osmosis is a passive process, in that it requires no expenditure of cellular energy. 

There are other types of semi-permeable membrane that will not allow charged particles such as Na" or to pass through, but will allow through uncharged particles of almost any size. A lot of biology involves selective membranes of one kind or another. 

Membranes play an important role in natural science and for many technical applications. Depending on their purpose, their shape can be very different. For instance, membranes include porous or non-porous films, either supported or non-supported, with two interfaces surrounded by a gas or by a liquid. Important properties of non-porous membranes are their permeability for certain compounds and their stability. In biological cells their main task is to stabilize the cell and to separate the cell plasma from the environment. Furthermore, different cells and cell compartments have to communicate with each other which requires selective permeability of the membranes. For industrial applications membranes are often used for separation of gases, liquids, or ions. Foams and emulsions for instance are macroscopic composite systems consisting of many membranes. They contain the continuous liquid phase surrounded by the dispersed gas phase (foams) or by another liquid (emulsions). Beside these application possibilities membranes give the opportunity to investigate many questions related to basic research, e.g. finite size effects. 

Osmometry is a technique for measuring the concentration of solute particles that contribute to the osmotic pressure of a solution. Osmotic pressure governs the movement of solvent (water in biological systems) across membranes that separate two solutions. Different membranes vary in pore size and thus in their ability to select molecules of different size and shape. Examples of biologically important selective membranes are those enclosing the glomerular and capillary vessels that are permeable to water and to essentially aU small molecules and ions, but not to large protein molecules. Differences in the concentrations of osmoticaUy active molecules that carmot cross a membrane cause those molecules that can cross the membrane to move to establish an osmotic equilibrium. This movement of solute and permeable ions exerts what is known as osmotic pressure. 

Reinartz, N.M., Wren, M., Kahn, R., and Howard, E., Jr., 2006. Selectively permeable membranes for chemical and biological protective clothing, Scientiflc Conference on Chemical and Biological Defense Research, November 13-15, Hunt Valley, MD. 

Truong. Q. and Sarangapani, S., 2002. Development of elastomeric selectively permeable membranes for chemical/biological protective clothing, 23rd Army Science Conference, December 2-5, Orlando, FL. 

The boundaries of cells are formed by biological membranes, the barriers that define the inside and the outside of a cell (Figure 12.1). These barriers prevent molecules generated inside the cell from leaking out and unwanted molecules from diffusing in yet they also contain transport systems that allow the cell to take up specific molecules and remove unwanted ones. Such transport systems confer on membranes the important property of selective permeability. 

Biological membranes are sheetlike structures, typically from 60 to 100 A thick, that are composed of protein and lipid molecules held together by noncovalent interactions. Membranes are highly selective permeability barriers. They create closed compartments, which may be entire cells or organelles within a cell. Proteins in membranes regulate the molecular and ionic compositions of these compartments. Membranes also control the flow of information between cells. 

The term selectively permeable or differentially permeable is used to describe biological membranes because they restrict passage of particles based both on size and charge. Even small ions, such as H, cannot pass freely across a cell membrane. 

Because a cell membrane is selectively permeable, it is not always possible for solutes to pass through it in response to a concentration gradient. In such cases the solvent diffuses through the membrane. Such membranes, permeable to solvent but not to solute, are specifically called semlpermeable membranes. Osmosis is the diffusion of a solvent (water in biological systems) through a semlpermeable membrane in response to a water concentration gradient. 

From a biological perspective, the finding of functioning hemichannels seems counterintuitive. There is an understandable bias that such large channels, if they were open, would rapidly kill cells by destruction of the selective permeability of the plasma membrane. However, the plasma membrane of macrophages and mast cells can become permeable to Lucifer Yellow [possibly through connexin channels (33)] for many minutes without lethal effect (115, 116). 

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