Organic Solvent Stress on Membrane

Beet Cell Lab

Purpose: The purpose of this Lab was to see how much pressure or stress the beet tissue would hold.

Hypothesis: I hypothesize that the higher % of the solvent that the higher the colour intensity will be shown on the ph colour scale. The lower the solvent then the less colour shown.

Materials:

*Test Tubes (4)

*Cork Borer

*Beets

*Water

*1% Acetone

*50% Acetone

*1% Methanol

*50% Methanol

Procedure:

*Cut 4 uniform cylinders of beet using a cork borer with a 5-mm inside diameter. Trim each cylinder to 15-mm in length.

*Place these cylinders of beet tissues in a beaker and run tap water over then for 2 minutes to wash betacyanin from the injured cells on the surface.

*Discard the slightly coloured solution, and place the 4 beets sections into 4 dry test tubes.

*Keep all beets at room temperature

for 20 minutes and shake them occasionally. After 20 minutes, remove and discard the beet sections and observe the extent of membrane injury according to the amount of betacyanin that diffused into the organic solvent.

*Quantify the relative colour of each solution between 0 (colourless) and 10(darkest red).

Record your data in the table. Graph relative colour versus organic-solvent concentration according to a demonstration graph provided by your instructor.

Observations:

Tube Number Treatment Colour intensity

1 1% Acetone 2

2 50% Actetone 8

3 1% Methanol 2

4 50% Methanol 8

(1)

2a)The results my group got for part b which was the colour intensity of betacyaninun leaked from damaged membranes