BIO6: Osmoregulation

Osmoregulation

Osmoregulation is the process of maintaining salt and water balance (osmotic balance) across membranes within the body. The fluids inside and surrounding cells are composed of water, electrolytes, and nonelectrolytes. An electrolyte is a compound that dissociates into ions when dissolved in water.

A nonelectrolyte, in contrast, does not dissociate into ions in water. The body’s fluids include blood plasma, fluid that exists within cells, and the interstitial fluid that exists in the spaces between cells and tissues of the body.

The membranes of the body (both the membranes around cells and the “membranes” made of cells lining body cavities) are semipermeable membranes. Semipermeable membranes are permeable to certain types of solutes and to water, but typically cell membranes are impermeable to solutes.

THIS VIDEO EXPLAINS ABOUT OSMOREGULATION

The body does not exist in isolation. There is a constant input of water and electrolytes into the system. Excess water, electrolytes, and wastes are transported to the kidneys and excreted, helping to maintain osmotic balance. Insufficient fluid intake results in fluid conservation by the kidneys.

Biological systems constantly interact and exchange water and nutrients with the environment by way of consumption of food and water and through excretion in the form of sweat, urine, and feces. Without a mechanism to regulate osmotic pressure, or when a disease damages this mechanism, there is a tendency to accumulate toxic waste and water, which can have dire consequences.

Mammalian systems have evolved to regulate not only the overall osmotic pressure across membranes, but also specific concentrations of important electrolytes in the three major fluid compartments: blood plasma, interstitial fluid, and intracellular fluid. Since osmotic pressure is regulated by the movement of water across membranes, the volume of the fluid compartments can also change temporarily. Since blood plasma is one of the fluid components, osmotic pressures have a direct bearing on blood pressure.

In plant

While there are no specific osmoregulatory organs in higher plants, the stomata are important in regulating water loss through evapotranspiration, and on the cellular level the vacuole is crucial in regulating the concentration of solutes in the cytoplasm. Strong winds, low humidity and high temperatures all increase evapotranspiration from leaves. Abscisic acid is an important hormone in helping plants to conserve water it causes stomata to close and stimulates root growth so that more water can be absorbed.

Plants share with animals the problems of obtaining water but, unlike in animals, the loss of water in plants is crucial to create a driving force to move nutrients from the soil to tissues. Certain plants have evolved methods of water conservation.

THIS VIDEO EXPLAINS OSMOREGULATION IN PLANTS

Xerophytes are plants that can survive in dry habitats, such as deserts, and are able to withstand prolonged periods of water shortage. Succulent plants such as the cacti store water in the vacuoles of large parenchyma tissues.

Other plants have leaf modifications to reduce water loss, such as needle-shaped leaves, sunken stomata, and thick, waxy cuticles as in the pine. The sand-dune marram grass has rolled leaves with stomata on the inner surface.

Hydrophytes are plants in water habitats. They mostly grow in water or in wet or damp places. In these plants the water absorption occur through the whole surface of the plant, e.g., the water lily.

Halophytes are plants living in marshy areas (close to sea). They have to absorb water from such a soil which has higher salt concentration and therefore lower water potential (higher osmotic pressure). Halophytes cope with this situation by activating salts in their roots. As a consequence, the cells of the roots develop lower water potential which brings in water by osmosis.

The excess salt can be stored in cells or excreted out from salt glands on leaves. The salt thus secreted by some species help them to trap water vapours from the air, which is absorbed in liquid by leaf cells. Therefore, this is another way of obtaining additional water from air, e.g., glasswort and cord-grass.

Mesophytes are plants living in lands of temperate zone, which grow in well-watered soil. They can easily compensate the water lost by transpiration through absorbing water from the soil. To prevent excessive transpiration they have developed a waterproof external covering called cuticle.

In animals

Kidneys play a very large role in human osmoregulation by regulating the amount of water reabsorbed from glomerular filtrate in kidney tubules, which is controlled by hormones such as antidiuretic hormone (ADH), aldosterone, and angiotensin II. For example, a decrease in water potential is detected by osmoreceptors in the hypothalamus, which stimulates ADH release from the pituitary gland to increase the permeability of the walls of the collecting ducts in the kidneys. Therefore, a large proportion of water is reabsorbed from fluid in the kidneys to prevent too much water from being excreted.

THIS VIDEO EXPLAINS OSMOREGULATION IN ANIMALS

In protists

Amoeba makes use of contractile vacuoles to collect excretory wastes, such as ammonia, from the intracellular fluid by diffusion and active transport. As osmotic action pushes water from the environment into the cytoplasm, the vacuole moves to the surface and disposes the contents into the environment.

In bacteria

Bacteria respond to osmotic stress by rapidly accumulating electrolytes or small organic solutes via transporters whose activities are stimulated by increases in osmolarity. The bacteria may also turn on genes encoding transporters of osmolytes and enzymes that synthesize osmoprotectants. The EnvZ/OmpR two-component system, which regulates the expression of porins, is well characterized in the model organism E. coli.

THIS VIDEO EXPLAINS OSMOREGULATION IN BACTERIA, PROTISTS AND FISH

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