QUESTION IMAGE
Question
- what would happen to a cell if it was placed in extremely salty water?
moving large particles some materials, such as food particles, are too large to
cross the cell membrane. in a process called endocytosis (en doh sigh toh sis),
the cell membrane takes particles into the cell by changing shape and engulfing
the particles. once the food particle is engulfed, the cell membrane fuses,
pinching off a vacuole within the cell. the reverse process, called exocytosis (ek
soh sigh toh sis), allows large particles to leave a cell. this process is shown in
figure 6. during exocytosis, the vacuole surrounding the food particles fuses
with the cell membrane, forcing the contents out of the cell. both endocytosis
and exocytosis are forms of active transport that require energy from the cell.
Extremely salty water has a higher solute (salt) concentration than the cell's interior, creating a hypertonic environment. By osmosis, water moves out of the cell (from low solute to high solute concentration) to balance concentrations. This causes the cell to lose water, shrink, and potentially become plasmolyzed (in plant cells) or shrivel (in animal cells).
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The cell would lose water via osmosis (due to the hypertonic salty water), causing it to shrink (or plasmolyze in plant cells) as water moves out to balance the solute concentration.