Final answer:
ABC transporters are capable of transporting a variety of substances including ions, sugars, amino acids, peptides, and polysaccharides. These transporters use ATP to move substances across cell membranes and are very specific to the solutes they transport.
Step-by-step explanation:
Different ABC transporters can indeed transport a wide variety of substances across the cell membrane. These substances include ions, sugars, amino acids and peptides, and even large molecules such as polysaccharides. ABC transporters are a form of carrier proteins that utilize energy derived from ATP to transport materials against their concentration gradient, hence the name ATP-binding cassette transporters. An important aspect of these carrier proteins is their specificity; they are often specific for a single solute or a family of closely related solutes.
Carrier proteins facilitate the movement of substances via active transport, with uniporters, symporters, and antiporters being the three main types. While a uniporter carries one molecule or ion, a symporter carries two different substances in the same direction, and an antiporter transports two different substances but in opposite directions. All of these types of carrier proteins can also aid in the transport of small, uncharged molecules like glucose. It is important to note that the active transport of larger molecules, such as starches, occurs through different mechanisms like endocytosis and exocytosis.