Question

In brief state what happens when

1. dry apricots are left for sometime in pure water and later transferred to sugar solution?
2. a Red Blood Cell is kept in concentrated saline solution?
3. the Plasma-membrane of a cell breaks down?
4. the leaves are boiled in water first and then a drop of sugar syrup is put on it
5. Golgi apparatus is removed from the cell?

Answer 1

a. When dry apricots are left in pure water, they swell up due to endosmosis and when they are kept in a sugar solution, they shrink due to exosmosis.

b. When a red blood cell is kept in a concentrated saline solution, it loses water due to exosmosis and1 shrinks. It gives a shriveled appearance (carnation).

c. If the plasma membrane of a cell breaks down, all the protoplasmic materials including cells organelles will come out of the cell resulting in their non-functioning and hence death of the cell. The plasma membrane is a selectively permeable membrane that regulates transport of certain specific substances into and out of the cell maintaining the identity of the cell. If the plasma membrane of a cell breaks down, there may occur loss of some essential components of the cell and the substances which are not required by the cell may enter into it. This would ultimately lead to the death of the cell.

d. Cells of the real leaves will get killed on boiling, hence no plasmolysis will occur. Therefore there will be no effect of putting sugar syrup over the leaves.

e. If the Golgi apparatus is removed from the cell, modification, sorting, and packaging of materials coming from ER or synthesized in the Golgi apparatus itself, will not take place. Other functions carried out by the Golgi apparatus such as synthesis of complex sugars, formation of lysosomes, membrane biogenesis, etc. will also not take place, resulting in non-functioning and hence death of the cell.