What is the difference between endocytosis and active transport

These include things like water and nutrients. Receptor-mediated endocytosis is a specialized type of pinocytosis. Cholesterol uptake is an example of receptor-mediated endocytosis.

The following is an outline of the basic steps of the two types of endocytosis. Two types of endocytosis: phagocytosis and pinocytosis. Macrophages are a type of white blood cell that play a central role in protecting mammals against pathogens like bacteria and viruses. Next, the macrophage will form a vesicle around the virus, completely ingesting it.

The vesicle then travels to the cytosol and fuses with the lysosome, where the virus is broken down. Exocytosis is the process by which cells move materials from within the cell into the extracellular fluid. Exocytosis occurs when a vesicle fuses with the plasma membrane, allowing its contents to be released outside the cell. Exocytosis serves the following purposes:. The majority of molecules traveling to the plasma membrane do so using this pathway. Exocytosis involves the passage of a vesicle from the endoplasmic reticulum or Golgi apparatus, through the cytoplasm to the cell membrane, where it fuses and releases its contents.

There are two main kinds of endocytosis: Phagocytosis , or cellular eating, occurs when the dissolved materials enter the cell. The plasma membrane engulfs the solid material, forming a phagocytic vesicle. Pinocytosis , or cellular drinking, occurs when the plasma membrane folds inward to form a channel allowing dissolved substances to enter the cell, as shown in Figure below.

When the channel is closed, the liquid is encircled within a pinocytic vesicle. Illustration of an axon releasing dopamine by exocytosis. Summary Active transport is the energy-requiring process of pumping molecules and ions across membranes against a concentration gradient. Endocytosis is the process of capturing a substance or particle from outside the cell by engulfing it with the cell membrane , and bringing it into the cell.

Exocytosis describes the process of vesicles fusing with the plasma membrane and releasing their contents to the outside of the cell. Both endocytosis and exocytosis are active transport processes.

Explore More Use this resource to answer the questions that follow. And so you see that the membrane Let me make it very clear. This is inside. This is inside the cell. This is outside. Outside the cell. And you can see the cellular membrane starts to wrap around this, I guess we can think of this a bacteria, then it fully wraps around and then that membrane that was wrapping around the bacteria pinches off and now the bacteria is inside of the cell, and it's wrapped by this membrane.

And this process where you're engulfing these large things, we call this Phagocytosis. So this is phago And the prefix I guess you'd say, phago comes from the Greek for "to eat".

So this is literally about cell eating. And in many cases, this thing that is now in here, you could view this as the cell's food, this compartment that is holding this, in this case bacteria, is gonna transport it maybe to a lysosome, so it can be processed and digested in some way. We would call this big compartment, this membrane-bound compartment, we would call this a food vacuole. Food vacuole. Because cells contain proteins, most of which are negatively charged, and because ions move into and out of cells, there is an electrical gradient, a difference of charge, across the plasma membrane.

The situation is more complex, however, for other elements such as potassium. The combined gradient that affects an ion is called its electrochemical gradient, and it is especially important to muscle and nerve cells.

To move substances against a concentration or an electrochemical gradient, the cell must use energy. This energy is harvested from ATP that is generated through cellular metabolism.

Active transport mechanisms, collectively called pumps or carrier proteins, work against electrochemical gradients. With the exception of ions, small substances constantly pass through plasma membranes. Active transport maintains concentrations of ions and other substances needed by living cells in the face of these passive changes.

Because active transport mechanisms depend on cellular metabolism for energy, they are sensitive to many metabolic poisons that interfere with the supply of ATP. Two mechanisms exist for the transport of small-molecular weight material and macromolecules.

Primary active transport moves ions across a membrane and creates a difference in charge across that membrane. The primary active transport system uses ATP to move a substance, such as an ion, into the cell, and often at the same time, a second substance is moved out of the cell.

The sodium-potassium pump, an important pump in animal cells, expends energy to move potassium ions into the cell and a different number of sodium ions out of the cell Figure 2. The action of this pump results in a concentration and charge difference across the membrane. Figure 2. The sodium-potassium pump move potassium and sodium ions across the plasma membrane.

Secondary active transport describes the movement of material using the energy of the electrochemical gradient established by primary active transport. Using the energy of the electrochemical gradient created by the primary active transport system, other substances such as amino acids and glucose can be brought into the cell through membrane channels.