ABSTRACT
Cellular membrane, the semi-permeable compartment, maintains transmembrane transport of materials and information. Natural and artificial agents that are meant to naturally travel or artificially forced to get delivered back-and-forth or unidirectionally across various membranes, such as plasma, nuclear, and mitochondrial membranes follow mainly two routes. They are membrane-hosted versatile ion channel and non-channel routes. Experimental methods have been used to determine, qualitatively or quantitatively, whether a molecule has successfully traversed the cell membrane. Various molecules, including ions, small solutes, and metabolites, along with bacterial toxins and viruses, are thought to traverse the cell membrane. Carrier proteins are involved in membrane transport of materials and information. Although ion channels are also carrier proteins, but the transporters do have different ion channel structural moieties inside membrane. Congenital hemolytic anemias are inherited disorders caused partially due to the red blood cell membrane property alternation, in addition to cytoskeletal protein defects, deviant hemoglobin synthesis, and metabolic enzyme deficiencies.
