Campbell Biology (11th Edition)

Published by Pearson
ISBN 10: 0-13409-341-0
ISBN 13: 978-0-13409-341-3

Chapter 5 - 5.3 - Concept Check - Page 75: 3

Answer

The membrane around an oil droplet could be a monolayer, since the fatty acids could interact with the hydrophobic oils inside the droplet and thus not need the second layer of a bilayer for stability.

Work Step by Step

The key here is to see that a membrane bilayer has two layers so that they hydrophobic fatty acid tails are stabilized by interacting with one another, but that is is not needed if the material interior to the membrane is a lipid droplet.
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