DYNAMICS ACROSS THE MEMBRANES

Dynamics literally means movement. Plasma membrane and all other biological membranes of eukaryotic cells including all other cell organelles have the same basic structure given by FLUID MOSAIC MODEL. Biological membranes are dynamic , fluid structures as most of their lipids and proteins molecules are able to move about the plane of membrane.

MEMBRANE DYNAMICS
One remarkable feature of all biological membranes is their flexibilitytheir ability to change shape without losing their integrity and becoming leaky. The basis for this property is the noncovalent interactions among lipids in the bilayer and the motions allowed to individual lipids because they are not covalently anchored to one another.

 Lipids in a biological membrane can exist in liquid-ordered or liquiddisordered states; in the latter state, thermal motion of acyl chains makes the interior of the bilayer fluid. Fluidity is affected by temperature, fatty acid composition, and sterol content. Flip-flop diffusion of lipids between the inner and outer leaflets of a membrane is very slow except when specifically catalyzed by flippases. Lipids and proteins can diffuse laterally within the plane of the membrane, but this mobility is limited by interactions of membrane proteins with internal cytoskeletal structures and interactions of lipids with lipid rafts. One class of lipid rafts consists of sphingolipids and cholesterol with a subset of membrane proteins that are GPI-linked or attached to several long-chain fatty acyl moieties.

WHY TRANSPORT ACROSS MEMBRANES TAKES PLACE?

To maintain the essential differences between the cells content and its environment/matrix. Due to the concentration/chemical gradient. Due to the electric potential difference/gradient.

Concentration gradient and electric gradient is together called electrochemical gradient.