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Cell Membrane: Just Passing Through

Words to know:

The cell membrane is critical to the survival of a cell. It acts

as a boundary between the cell and its environment, keeping the
cytoplasm and organelles inside and harmful organisms and
particles out. But the cell membrane is not an impenetrable wall -quite the contrary. If it were, the cell would quickly use up any
nutrients and oxygen it may have had to start with and, having no
way to acquire more, become depleted and die.
The cell membrane, also called the plasma membrane,
functions more like a bag of tightly woven fabric than like a wall. The
membrane allows some molecules, including gases like oxygen and
carbon dioxide, to pass readily through its surface. Water and other
small molecules also move into and out of the cell with relative ease.
Other substances, however, can move into or out of the cell only
through special openings called ion channels, GluT transporters, and
protein pumps.
Like the drawstring opening of a cloth bag, the openings in
the cell membrane allow the cell to take in and release fairly large
molecules like glucose, as well as ions (atoms with a positive or
negative electrical charge) that are unable to pass through the main,
lipid-bilayer portion of the membrane. Depending on the type of
molecule or particle involved and the environment inside and outside
the membrane, the cell may have to actively pump molecules or ions
along the channel in a process called active transport. In other cases
it may provide protein "escorts" for the molecules in a process called
facilitated transport, or it may simply provide an open channel that
allows some large molecules and ions to move in and out.
To move extremely large molecules and particles across the
cell membrane, the cell must temporarily alter the structure of its
membrane. For example, enzymes, the large protein molecules
produced by cells in the digestive tract, are far too large to pass
through the protein pumps and ion channels of the cells that produce
them. Instead, the cells package these huge molecules in pouches,
called vacuoles, made of a lipid bilayer identical to the one that
makes up the cell membrane. When the vacuole makes contact with
the cell membrane, the cell membrane and the membrane of the
vacuole split open at the point of contact and release the enzymes.
This process is called exocytosis.
Endocytosis is similar to but in many ways the reverse of
exocytosis. Cells "ingest" large molecules and other materials by
folding their cell membrane around them to create vacuoles. When
an object is completely enclosed, the vacuole is pinched off and
released into the cytoplasm inside the cell. One form of endocytosis,
called phagocytosis, allows certain types of cells (phagocytes),
including white blood cells, to consume other types of cells. The
process of phagocytosis is the same as endocytosis, except that the
objects being ingested during phagocytosis are sometimes larger
than the phagocyte itself

critical to very important

to
boundary edge/border
impenetrable (unable to
be understood or broken
through)
contrary opposite
acquire buy/own/receive
depleted used
up/reduced
readily easily

portion of part of/amount

of
facilitated helped

extremely very
temporarily (only for a
short time)
alter change

bilayer double layer

is similar to is just like

ingest eat

ingested ate