Final answer:
The permeability of a lipid bilayer to glucose is too low for significant passive diffusion without transport proteins, and facilitated transport is necessary for efficient glucose entry into cells. With provided data and the low permeability rate, it is not possible to accurately determine the number of glucose molecules entering the cell in 10 seconds.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question asks how many glucose molecules will enter a cell with its glucose transporter knocked out, when placed in a solution with 1 mM glucose, over a span of 10 seconds. Glucose cannot pass directly through the cell membrane because the plasma membrane is impermeable to polar molecules like glucose without transport proteins; hence glucose requires facilitated transport to cross the membrane.
The permeability of the lipid bilayer to glucose without the help of transporters is given as 10⁻¸ cm/sec. To find out the number of glucose molecules that enter the cell, we need to calculate the amount of glucose that diffuses through an area of 5µm² in 10 seconds using the provided permeability. However, with the information given, there is not enough data to calculate an exact number of molecules, as we need the concentration gradient and the exact volume of the cell to find out the number of glucose molecules that will enter. Therefore, we cannot determine the correct answer from the given options without making assumptions about missing variables.