6.1 What roles do lipids play on organism?

(Continued)

1. Lipids as a group are defined as being hydrophobic, or insoluble in water. As a

result, this group includes a fairly wide range of compounds—for example, fats,
oils, waxes and steroids like cholesterol.
a. How are the structures of steroids, phospholipids, and fats suited to their
different functions?
i. Steroids and phospholipids are ideally suited to form
_______________ because of their ________________ tails and
___________ heads that naturally form lipid bilayers. Fats,
however, are well suited to their function as an ___________
storage molecule because of the large amount of energy stored in
the fatty-acid subunits.
b. You have a friend who lost 20 pounds of fat on a diet. Where did the fat
go (how was it lost)? Be sure to explain your reasoning.
i. When you consume fewer calories than your body needs, your
body turns to fat for __________. Body fat is broken down
through a series of complex metabolic processes. Your body uses
the energy produced by these processes. The waste products from
these processes are water and ________ (just like what happens in
cellular respiration where sugar is used to make ATP). You excrete
water primarily through urine and sweat, and carbon dioxide by
exhaling.

6.2 What controls the movement of materials into and out of the cell?

2. To be alive most cells must maintain a relatively constant internal environment.

To do this, they must be able to control the movement of materials into and out of
the cell. What do characteristics of the cell membrane determine what gets into
the cell and what doesn’t? That is, what determines the permeability of a cell or
organelle membrane? To answer these questions, first consider the answers to the
following questions:
a. If a cell membrane were composed of only a phospholipid bilayer, what
properties would it have?
i. Phospholipids contain a hydro__________ phosphate head region
and a hydro__________fatty-acid tail region. When these form a
bilayer, the phosphate heads interact with the water and the
___________________ interact with each other. If you think of
this as a static, continuous structure, then it is easy to see that
nothing should get through. Charged molecules should be repelled
or attracted by the phospholipid head ends, and hydrophilic
substances should be unable to cross the fatty-acid region.
However, this is not a static structure, so very small uncharged
molecules and water canmove across a phospholipid bilayer.
b. What different roles or functions do membrane proteins serve?
 i. Membrane __________ allow charged and larger molecules to
cross the membrane. They facilitate the passage of these
molecules. As a result, diffusion of molecules through such a
membrane proteins is called _______________ diffusion.
ii. Other membrane proteins use the _______ from ATP to move
molecules across membranes against a ____________ gradient.
These types of membrane proteins are often called ________ and
function in ___________ transport.
c. Why are some cell types more permeable to a substance (for example
sodium ions) than others?
i. Some cell types are more ___________ to a specific substance
than others. The difference in permeability is the result of
differences in the types of membrane proteins the cell contain.
3. Using your understanding of the answers in a-c, now answer these questions:
What characteristics of the cell membrane determine what gets into the cell and
what doesn’t? That is, what determines the permeability of a cell or organelle
membrane?
a. Only very small, _______ or nonpolar molecules are capable of diffusing
across the ____________ bilayer. Specific membrane transport
_________ are required for the movement of all other types of molecules
into or out of the cell or organelle. Cells and organelles vary in the types
of membrane transport proteins they contain. This variability is a function
of which genes are active in each cell type.

6.3 How is the structure of a cell membrane related to its function?

Membranes compartmentalize the different functions of living cells. The cell membrane
is a barrier between the cell or organism and its environment. Similarly, within the cell,
membranes or organelles separate the different reactions of metabolism from each other.

4. Use supplies and materials from home to develop a model of a cell membrane.
Developing models can help you understand their overall structure as well as their
functions(s).
a. Building the Model
i. Include in the membrane the phospholipid bilayer (phosphate
heads and fattyacid tails) as well as the integral proteins.
ii. Design integral proteins that serve the functions of facilitated
diffusion and active transport.
iii. Explain in a paragraph how the various types of integral proteins
might differ in structure and operation
5. Use the understanding you gain from your model to fill in the table below.
a. Substances can move across the membrane via simple diffusion, facilitated
diffusion, or active transport.
a. Where does it b. Does is c. Does it
occur in the require require
membrane: transport input of
proteins? energy?
Simple Diffusion
Facilitated Diffusion
Active Transport