Composition and Structure of Cell Membranes

Abstract

There is perhaps no need for an apology when opening a treatise of cell membrane transport with a consideration of what cell membranes are. Straightforward as this question may appear, it will not elicit the same answer from a cytologist to whom the cell membrane is a rather concrete boundary line (or lines) that he sees or believes to see under his microscope and from a physiologist to whom it represents the barrier separating the cell interior from the external medium which is invested with a number of peculiar permeability properties.