Animal cells in solutions of different concentrations
- Animal cells also lose and gain water as a result of osmosis
- As animal cells do not have a supporting cell wall, the results on the cell are more severe
- If an animal cell is placed into a concentrated sugar solution (with a lower water potential than the cell), it will lose water by osmosis and become crenated (shrivelled up)
- If an animal cell is placed into distilled water (with a higher water potential than the cell), it will gain water by osmosis and, as it has no cell wall to create turgor pressure, will continue to do so until the cell membrane is stretched too far and it bursts
Water Potential and Animal Cells Diagram
Effect of osmosis on animal cells (hypertonic solution is a concentrated solution, hypotonic solution is a dilute solution, isotonic solution has the same solute concentration and water concentration compared to the cells within it)