Skip to content

Membrane Structure

All living cells are enclosed by a plasma membrane which is made of a phospholipid bilayer.It forms a physical barrier that allows the internal environment of a cell to have different conditions from the cell's external environment.The plasma membrane is selectively permeable and controls what substances move in and out of the cell.Bacteria and plant cells have plasma membrane surrounded by a cell wall.

Read the text

Read the text and highlight anything you think is important. When you go on, the text is hidden and you answer from memory.

Specification: OCR Biology A (H020), AS-level, 2.1.5 Biological membranes. Topic: Plasma Membrane.

Key terms in this lesson

phospholipid bilayer
Two layers of phospholipid molecules arranged with hydrophilic heads facing outwards and hydrophobic tails facing inwards, forming the basic structure of cell membranes.
selectively permeable
Describes a membrane that allows some substances to cross it but not others.

More in Plasma Membrane

All 18 lessons in Plasma Membrane · All OCR AS-level Biology topics