The cell membrane or plasma membrane is a biological membrane that separates the interior of all cells from the outside environment. The cell membrane is selectively permeable to ions and organic molecules and controls the movement of substances in and out of cells. The basic function of the cell membrane is to protect the cell from its surroundings. It consists of the lipid bilayer with embedded proteins. Cell membranes are involved in a variety of cellular processes such as cell adhesion, ion conductivity and cell signaling and serve as the attachment surface for several extracellular structures, including the cell wall, glycocalyx, and intracellular cytoskeleton. Cell membranes can be artificially reassembled.
Read more about Cell Membrane: Function, Prokaryotes, Composition, Variation, Permeability
Other articles related to "cell membrane, membrane, cell, cells":
... Movement using a pseudopod is accomplished through increases in pressure at one point on the cell membrane ... This pressure increase is the result of actin polymerization between the cortex and the membrane ... As the pressure increases the cell membrane is pushed outward creating the pseudopod ...
... The permeability of a membrane is the rate of passive diffusion of molecules through the membrane ... Due to the cell membrane's hydrophobic nature, small electrically neutral molecules pass through the membrane more easily than charged, large ones ... The inability of charged molecules to pass through the cell membrane results in pH partition of substances throughout the fluid compartments of the body ...
... Cell polarity arises primarily through the localization of specific proteins to specific areas of the cell membrane ... the recruitment of cytoplasmic proteins to the cell membrane and polarized vesicle transport along cytoskeletal filaments to deliver transmembrane proteins from the ... Many of the molecules responsible for regulating cell polarity are conserved across cell types and throughout metazoan species ...
... Class IIa bacteriocins are all cationic, display anti-Listeria activity, and kill target cells by permeabilizing the cell membrane ... domain mediates binding of the class IIa bacteriocin to the target cell membrane ... region forms a hairpin-like domain that penetrates into the hydrophobic part of the target cell membrane, thereby mediating leakage through the membrane ...
... Cell theory has its origins in seventeenth century microscopy observations, but it would be nearly two hundred years before a complete cell membrane theory be developed to ... of semi-permeable barrier must exist around a cell ... of pioneering experiments in 1925 indicated that this barrier membrane consisted of two molecular layers of lipids—a lipid bilayer ...
Famous quotes containing the word cell:
“I turn and turn in my cell like a fly that doesn’t know where to die.”
—Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937)