Identify the type of transport (passive diffusion, facilitated transport, or active transport) that will occur for the following molecules:
(b) glucose, no energy required

Question

Identify the type of transport (passive diffusion, facilitated transport, or active transport) that will occur for the following molecules:

(b) glucose, no energy required

Accepted Answer

All right. Hello everyone. So this question says what type of transport that is passive diffusion, facilitated transport or active transport is involved when sodium ions move from an area of low concentration inside the cell to a higher concentration outside the cell. And A TP is used option A says passive diffusion B says facilitative transport, C says active transport and D says none of these. So first and foremost, let's recall a few different principles of the movement of species like ions, sodium ions in this case. So when it comes to a passive movement, when it comes to movement of something that does not require energy, we are talking about a movement from more to less. So what does that mean? Well, the movement of something, the movement of ions, for example, will not require energy if you're going from an area of high concentration towards an area of low concentration. So now what is the difference, for example between passive diffusion and facilitated transport? Well, let's take for example, this context of movement from the inside of a cell to the outside of a cell. Now the boundary of a cell is marked by the presence of a lipid bilayer, right, that's the plasma membrane, the plasma membrane has a nonpolar center because of the lipid tails inside. So some some species, for example, certain small molecules can pass through the cell membrane directly. In other words, they can pass through this nonpolar bilayer without issue, these substances can undergo passive diffusion because they don't require any kind of assistance to pass through the cell membrane, they can pass themselves directly. So if we're talking about a species, some small molecule moving from high concentration on the outside of the cell, the low concentration inside of the cell that requires no energy, that substance will move inside of the cell without issue. So when it's moving through the plasma membrane directly, that's passive diffusion. So this cannot happen when talking about a charged species like the sodium ion for this question. So instead within the plasma membrane, sometimes we have membrane proteins oops that passed through the entire lipid bilayer. So if we have the same scenario, for example, where we have a high concentration of an ion outside of the cell and low concentration of the ion inside of the cell, this process will also not require energy because it's following the normal gradient. However, because we're talking about a charged species, in other words, something that cannot pass through the lipid bilayer by itself, it's going to require assistance and it's going to pass through the membrane protein or the membrane channel. So this context would be an example of facilitated transport. Why? Because transporting this charged substance through its normal gradient requires assistance from the membrane protein. So that's facilitated transport. Now, neither of these require the use of A TP because both both forms of transport require or describe movement through the normal gradient. When A P is being used to move a substance in the opposite direction that is from low concentration to high concentration that is active transport. By definition, because energy is required to go against the normal gradient. So there you have it, with that being said, our correct answer is option c in the multiple choice. So with that being said, thank you so very much for watching and I hope you found this helpful.

Identify the type of transport (passive diffusion, facilitated transport, or active transport) that will occur for the following molecules:
(b) glucose, no energy required

Verified video answer for a similar problem:

Key Concepts

Passive Diffusion

Facilitated Transport

Active Transport

Identify the type of transport (passive diffusion, facilitated transport, or active transport) that will occur for the following molecules:(b) glucose, no energy required

Verified video answer for a similar problem:

Key Concepts

Passive Diffusion

Facilitated Transport

Active Transport

Identify the type of transport (passive diffusion, facilitated transport, or active transport) that will occur for the following molecules:
(b) glucose, no energy required