Consider the compartmentalized biological cellular system. The environment inside and outside the cell is aqueous. Relatively small molecules of low polarity, such prescription drugs, pass through the cell membrane.
In fact, equilibrium concentration of a drug inside and outside the cell be established for the drug to be effective. The major components of the cell membrane are glycerolphospholiPul esters acid este.n it is important that an such as the phosphatidylcholine molecule shown next.
The long-chain fatty may be saturated or may contain cis-double bonds. Review how the salts of long-chain fatty acids aggregate in water (Workshop 3, Problem 5b). The phosphatidylcholine molecules are similar in that they are amphipathic; that is, they have no P 1 (hydrophobic) tails and polar (hydrophilic) head groups. However, being different molecules, they aggregate somewhat differently to form the cell membrane.
Experiment with different aggregations of phosphatidylcholine molecules to find an arrangement that allows the membrane to interact with the aqueous environments inside and outside the cell and, at the same time, keep these two environments separated.
