Question

Will some red pigment be drawn out from the beetroot cells when there is a net gain of water during osmosis? Why?

Answer 1

The red pigment betalain escapes into the surrounding medium if the membrane is damaged e.g. by cutting, alcohol, detergent, temperature.

Explanation:

Betalain is a red pigment in the vacuole where it replaces anthocyanin, a purple pigment. In the opposite to anthocyanin, betalain is a poor pH indicator.

The cell membrane is a layer of phospholipid molecules with a mosaic of protein molecules attached to it. These components are necessary for the membrane to maintane the integrity of the cell contents.

Only by destroying the cell membrane the pigment will color the wather. When you cut the beetroots the pigment goes out and colors the wather. Higher temperatures, will allow the red pigment to go out of the cells. This is possible becaose the memebrane proteins are not any more functional and their structure is destroyed. The membrane proteins are are denatured.

Depends in which environment the cell is, it will different react to hypertonic, isotonic or hypotonic media.

Hypotonic solution `->` the one having a lower concentration of dissolved substance than the physiological solution.
Hypertonic solution `->` the one having a higher concentration of dissolved substance than the physiological solution.
Following that the pigment will probably react different in each situation.