What is the importance of osmosis and active transport within cell physiology?
Osmosis is the net movement of solvent molecules across a a selectively permeable membrane from an area with a high concentration of solvent molecules to an area of low concentration of solvent molecules. In living systems the chief solvent is water. Don’t let people confuse you by implying that osmosis is the same as simple diffusion (the overall movement of molecules or ions from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration till equilibrium is reached. Cells use simple diffusion for certain micro molecules like oxygen and carbon dioxide), or facilitated diffusion (a transported substance is coupled with a transporter molecule, again from a area of high concentration to a area of low concentration). Osmosis is important for a variety of cellular actions because osmotic pressure (isotonic, hypertonic or hypotonic) can interfere with a cell’s growth and metabolism. An easy example is salting food for storage: the salt creates an hypertonic solution in which there is mor
