Donny Daigle Ive started on the topic of cell membrane permeability. Lipid-soluble compounds such as fatty acids, sterols, steroids, lipid-soluble gases, such as nitric oxide, oxygen, carbon monoxide, all can diffuse directly through the lipid bilayer of the membrane. Water and certain ions such as sodium, potassium, chloride, and calcium can also diffuse across the membrane, but not directly--rather, they have to pass through via channels, or pores (made up of proteins) that reside within the membrane. It is selective, so you are not going to get an imbalance of say calcium and sodium. These would be regulated by gated ion channels, which are influenced by membrane potentials. Sulfur is responsible for making the cell membrane more permeable to oxygen, which will pass freely, and I suspect may act directly on certain glucose pumps and channels that allow amino acids to pass through facilitated diffusion. The passage of these molecules is independent from that of ions and other molecules. So MSM may act to increase permeability by increasing the channels for simple molecules such as glucose and amino acids, and increase the surface area or flexibility to oxygen across a gradient. The more rigid the cell, the less will pass by simple diffusion. All I need now is a schematic of HOW sulphur actually does this, but now Im getting way too nitty gritty. sparknotes/testprep/books/sat2/biology/chapter4section4.rhtml
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 00:08:38 +0000
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