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What is the effect of suspending the cells in hypotonic, hypertonic and isotonic environment?

Answer 1

The different environments will lead to osmosis taking place.

Osmosis is the diffusion of water through the cell membrane from an area of high water concentration to an area of lower water concentration.

Cells in hypertonic solutions will lose water.
Cells in hypotonic solutions will gain water.
Cells in isotonic solutions will neither gain nor lose water.

The video below discusses the effects on red onion cells when they are placed into different environments.

Hope this helps!

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Answer 2

Sebastian Alvarez

Suspending cells in a hypotonic solution causes them to swell and potentially burst due to water entering the cell. In a hypertonic solution, cells shrink as water leaves the cell to dilute the surrounding solution. In an isotonic solution, cells maintain their normal shape and size as there is no net movement of water across the cell membrane.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.