In an experiment, you create two groups of liposomes in a solution containing 0.1 M NaCl—one made from red blood cell membranes and the other from frog egg cell membranes. When the liposomes are placed in water, those with red blood cell membranes burst more rapidly than those made from egg membranes. What could explain these results? Select True or False for each of the following statements.
a. T/F The red blood cell liposomes are more hypertonic relative to water than the frog egg liposomes.
b. T/F The red blood cell liposomes are more hypotonic relative to water than the frog egg liposomes.
c. T/F The red blood cell liposomes contain more aquaporins than the frog egg liposomes.
d. T/F The frog egg liposomes contain ion channels, which are not present in the red blood cell liposomes.

Question

In an experiment, you create two groups of liposomes in a solution containing 0.1 M NaCl—one made from red blood cell membranes and the other from frog egg cell membranes. When the liposomes are placed in water, those with red blood cell membranes burst more rapidly than those made from egg membranes. What could explain these results? Select True or False for each of the following statements.

a. T/F The red blood cell liposomes are more hypertonic relative to water than the frog egg liposomes.

b. T/F The red blood cell liposomes are more hypotonic relative to water than the frog egg liposomes.

c. T/F The red blood cell liposomes contain more aquaporins than the frog egg liposomes.

d. T/F The frog egg liposomes contain ion channels, which are not present in the red blood cell liposomes.

Accepted Answer

Hello everyone. So in the following problem we have. When you place a red blood cells in a high Pathon IQ solution, it observes that its walls and it bursts and remember that this is because of osmosis water is going into the cell causing it to explode basically when too much water goes in. However, when a mushroom cell is placed in a hypothalamic solution, you observes that its walls becomes mushy but it does not burst. So which of the following can explain this result. As we look over answer choices. Look for a feature that the red that the cell or the mushroom cell has that the red blood cell does not have that will allow it to just withstand this osmotic pressure. So starting by answer choice, A red blood cells are smaller than fungal cell. This does not really explain how mushroom cells are able to withstand more water. However, this is a true statement. What we're going to cancel it out because it is not an explanation towards question and the same can be said about option B. Red blood cells can accommodate less water than fungal cells. Well, they exploded after water going in. So it's such a statement as well, but it's not explaining why these red blood cells are able to do this or these mushroom cells are able to do this. Then moving on to option the fungal cells have a large water volume capacity. Then red blood cells. This is very similar to option B. It is stating something that can be factual, however, is not explaining what the question is asking for. However, the only answer to is that represents a feature that fungal cells have, that red blood cells don't have is option C. Fungal cells have cell walls that keep the cell intact. The cell wall provides structural integrity. So imagine the cell wall as surrounding the cell as the cell begins to swell. This cell wall will prevent it from bursting because the cell wall will not swell with it. So this is what we would have at the end. That will be in red. The cell just swollen up but not exploding like a red blood cells. These cell walls are not present in red blood cells, so they will not have the same feature. So we're going to highlight option C. Fungal cells have bred cell walls that keep it intact as a final answer. Thank you for sticking around until the end of this video and I'll see you on the next one.

Verified video answer for a similar problem:

Key Concepts

Osmosis and Tonicity

Membrane Composition and Permeability

Aquaporins and Ion Channels