Eric J. answered • 04/04/22
Yale School of Medicine, Immunology Research Fellow
Hello Lilian!
The answer to this question is False.
The inner mitochondrial membrane functions to block protons from moving across any part of the membrane except at ATP Synthase. ATP Synthase relies on a high concentration of protons (H+) to build up in the intermembrane space, thus a "leaky" membrane would prevent this from happening.
A great analogy to visualize the process of ATP production is by thinking of the INTERmembrane space as a "water balloon." In this analogy, the inner mitochondrial membrane is equivalent to the water balloon, the "water" in the water balloon represents protons (H+), and the "spout" of the water balloon is ATP Synthase. In this analogy, you can imagine that the electron transport chain increases the proton concentration in the intermembrane space by magically adding "water" into the "water balloon." As more water builds up in the water balloon, there will be a higher force of water coming out of the spout, representing the protons flowing through ATP Synthase. This question asks what would happen if we poked holes in our water balloon - we would end up with a leaky balloon that is unable to build up a high concentration of water (protons) that is necessary to push out of the spout (ATP Synthase).
