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Hypotonic, isotonic, and hypertonic solutions (tonicity)

Cells react differently in hypotonic, isotonic, and hypertonic solutions. In a hypotonic solution, water rushes into the cell causing it to expand or even burst. In an isotonic solution, there is no net flow of water, keeping the cell stable. In a hypertonic solution, water leaves the cell, causing it to shrivel. These reactions are due to the semipermeable nature of cell membranes and the concentration of solutes. Created by Sal Khan.

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  • starky ultimate style avatar for user briantlegvold
    Is there a situation where you can turn your own internal environment into a hypotonic solution and thereby damage your blood cells? I.e. improper diet, crazy microbes from Australia, shooting up too much heroin...
    (9 votes)
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    • piceratops seed style avatar for user azam.m.awais
      tonicity is relative to external environment. In order to make your body hypo-tonic, you need to drink water, but the kidneys will return the volume and tonicity to the defined state. In relation to blood cells, tonicty does not have any prominent effect on them.
      (14 votes)
  • orange juice squid orange style avatar for user TeeGeeVee
    What is the difference between semi-permeable and selectively permeable?
    (5 votes)
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    • duskpin seed style avatar for user AStudent
      Semi-permeable membranes allow particles to pass through according to size, solute type, etc (any chemical or physical property). Selectively permeable membranes are basically the same, but they have much more specific restrictions. For example, the semi permeable membrane might allow a specific type of molecule, but the selectively permeable membrane would allow only a specific molecular geometry of that molecule to pass through it.
      (16 votes)
  • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user Majid Khorchid
    How do Hypotonic, Isotonic, and Hypertonic Solutions even occur? A Disease? What causes it to react to water leaving or coming in, or staying the same?
    (1 vote)
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    • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user Betty :)
      It doesn't have to be a disease, it could just be a living organism experiencing different environmental conditions- which it normally is. For example!
      If you dunked a piece of celery into freshwater - over 24 hours the water around the celery would travel through the semi-permeable membrane into the celery to attempt equilibrium, because there's a higher concentration of salt inside than outside. This would cause the celery to be hard and turgid. On the other hand, if you put a same-sized piece of celery into salt water, the 24 hour period would result in the water from the celery exiting the semi-permeable membrane and becoming soft and turgid.
      (16 votes)
  • blobby green style avatar for user Camila  C
    What is the difference between hypoosmotic & hypotonic, isosmotic & isotonic, and hyperosmotic & hypertonic?
    (4 votes)
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    • ohnoes default style avatar for user Prince
      The terms hypoosmotic and hypotonic, isoosmotic and isotonic, and hyperosmotic and hypertonic are all related to the tonicity of a solution. Tonicity refers to the relative concentrations of solutes between a cell and its surrounding solution. The terms are often used interchangeably, but there is a subtle difference between them.

      Hypoosmotic and hypotonic refer to solutions that have a lower solute concentration than the cell. In this case, water will move into the cell by osmosis, causing the cell to swell.

      Isoosmotic and isotonic refer to solutions that have the same solute concentration as the cell. In this case, there will be no net movement of water into or out of the cell.

      Hyperosmotic and hypertonic refer to solutions that have a higher solute concentration than the cell. In this case, water will move out of the cell by osmosis, causing the cell to shrink.

      Hope that helped!
      (6 votes)
  • scuttlebug yellow style avatar for user Parisi Fida
    The 'solute' in question is water molecules, right?
    (4 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user OJ T
    can you give an example of when you would use a hypotonic, a hypertonic, or an isotonic solution? not animal examples (slugs) please, just make it simple.. like a person with hypovolemic shock.. what do you give them? what kind of solution is it? why and how does it work to fix the problem?
    (2 votes)
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    • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user Somesh Jadhav
      Simple example, raisins. If you put raisins in the water, the water will enter into raisins and they will bloat or become turgid. If you put raisins in salt solution, the water and other permeable stuff will come out and raisins will shrink. Here water can be called hypotonic solution and salt solution can be called hypertonic solution. The movement occurs to balance concentration and form equilibrium.
      (9 votes)
  • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user Anjali Joseph
    Could someone please explain the differences between hypotonic, isotonic, and hypertonic solutions? Also is there an easier way to remember them?
    (2 votes)
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    • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user Rae
      If a cell is placed in a hypertonic solution, water will be attracted to the environment and leave the cell, and the cell will shrink. In an isotonic environment, there is the same amount of water on each side, so there is no change in the size of the cell. When a cell is placed in a hypotonic environment, water will enter the cell, and the cell will swell.

      You can use prefixes to help you. Hyper means over, or more than average, so you can imagine that the environment is "hyper" and so the water will be attracted to the environment. Hypo means below average, so the water will enter the cell to become average. "Iso" means equal. Also, you can think "iso" as isolate, and so each side is isolated...or there's no movement.

      I hope this helped! And that this made sense!
      (6 votes)
  • starky sapling style avatar for user Betty
    Did anyone notice that minutes in the Isotonic Solution box it says not new flow and the guy says no new flow:)
    (4 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user otown2000
    What is osmosis
    (0 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user Tab Pat
    When Sal explains the part of the isotonic solution he says the amount of solute has to be equal outside and inside the cell but in his diagram there are more solute particles outside than inside the cell?
    (2 votes)
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Video transcript

- [Voiceover] I have three different scenarios here of a cell being immersed in a solution, and the cell is this magenta circle, that's the cellular membrane. I have the water molecules depicted by these blue circles, and then, I have the solute inside of the solution, inside of the water solution that we depict with these yellow circles. I've clearly exaggerated the size of the water molecules and the solute particles relative to the size of the cell, but I did that so that we can visualize what's actually going on. We're going to assume that the cellular membrane, this phospholipid bilayer, is semipermeable, that it will allow water molecules to pass in and out, so a water molecule could go from the inside to the outside, or from the outside to the inside, but we're gonna assume that it does not allow the passage of the solute particles, so that's why it's semipermeable. It's permeable to certain things, or we could say, selectively permeable. Now, what do we think is going to happen? Well, the first thing that you might observe is we have a lower concentration of solute on the outside than we have on the inside, so at any given moment of time, you will have some water molecules moving in just the right direction to go from the outside to the inside, and you will also have some water molecules that might be in just the right place to go from the inside to the outside, but what's more likely to happen, and what's going to happen more over a certain period of time? The water molecules that are on the outside, and we talk about this in the osmosis video, they're going to be less obstructed by solute particles. If this one happens to be moving in that direction, well, it's gonna make its way to the membrane, and then, maybe get through the membrane, while something, maybe, if this water molecule was moving in this direction, well, gee, it's gonna be obstructed now, maybe this is bouncing back, and it's gonna ricochet off of it, so the water molecules on the inside are more obstructed. They're less likely to be able to fully interact with the membrane or move in the right direction. They're being obstructed by these solute particles. Even though you're going to have water molecules going back and forth, in a given period of time, you have a higher probability of more going in, than going out, so you're going to have a net inflow. Net inflow of H2O, of water molecules. Now, a situation like this, where we're talking about a cell and it's in a solution that has a lower concentration of solute, it's important that we're talking about a solute that is not allowed to go to the membrane, the membrane is not permeable to that solute. We call this type of situation, this type of solution that the cell is immersed in, we call this a hypotonic solution. Hypotonic solution. Anytime we're talking about hypotonic, or as we'll see, isotonic and hypertonic, we're talking about relative concentrations of solute that cannot get through some type of a membrane. The word hypo, you might've seen it in other things. It's a prefix that means less of something, so in this case, we have a lower concentration of solute in the solution than we have inside of the cell, and because of that, you're going to have osmosis, you're gonna have water molecules going from the outside, I should say, to the inside. That's actually going to put pressure on the cell. The cell itself might expand, or it could even, if there's enough pressure, it might even explode. Now, let's go to the next scenario. In this scenario, we have roughly equal concentrations of solute on the outside and on the inside, at least, I tried to draw them that way. In this situation, the probability of a water molecule, in a given period of time, going from the outside to the inside, or from the inside to the outside, is going to be the same, so you're not going to have any net inflow or net outflow. You're always gonna have water molecules going back and forth, but there's not gonna be any net inflow or outflow. Let's see, let me write no net, no net flow. In this type of solution, where you have the same concentration of solute in the solution, as you do inside the cell, we would call this an isotonic. This is an isotonic solution. Isotonic solution. The prefix, iso, refers to things that are the same. It has the same concentration of solute, and so you have no net inflow. Hypotonic solution, you have water molecules going into the cell, the cell expanding, kind of like a filling balloon. Isotonic solution, no net flow. Of course, you could imagine in this last scenario, I have a higher concentration of solute on the outside than I have on the inside. We can guess what's going to happen. First, what would I call this? Well, I have more of something in the solution, so I would use the prefix hyper. I have more of it, more, hypertonic. This is a hypertonic solution. Once again, the solute can't go across the membrane, but the water molecules can, and you're gonna have water molecules going from the outside to the inside, and from the inside to the outside, but the probability that the ones on the inside are gonna be less obstructed to go out, than the ones on the outside to go in, so you're going to have a net outflow. You have a higher probability of things going from the inside to the outside, than you do from things going from the outside to the inside because they're gonna be more obstructed, so they're gonna be held back, I guess, in different ways. In this situation, you're gonna have the water escape the cell, and the cell actually might shrivel up. Since it's gonna lose that pressure from the water, the cell itself might shrivel up in some way. You could actually see this in actual living systems. If you were to put a red blood cell into a hypotonic solution, the water's gonna rush into it, and it's gonna blow up. It's going to expand, so it's gonna look like a overinflated red blood cell, and an isotonic solution is gonna look the way that we're used to seeing a red blood cell, actually, having kind of that little divot in the middle area, while over here, it's all going to expand. Then, in the hypertonic solution, the water's going to escape the red blood cell, then you would actually see it kind of shrivel up, shrivel up a little bit like this because we have a net outflow of water molecules.