Group 5 presents

CELL

The cell is the basic structural and functional unit of all known living organisms. It is the smallest unit of life that is classified as a living thing, and is often called the building block of life. Organisms can be classified as unicellular(consisting of a single cell; including most bacteria) or multicellular (including plants and animals). Humans contain about 10 trillion (1013) cells. Most plant and animal cells are between 1 and 100 m and therefore are visible only under the microscope.

CELL THEORY
Cell theory refers to the idea as cells are the basic unit of structure in every living thing. Development of this theory during the mid 17th century was made possible by advances in microscopy. This theory is one of the foundations of biology.

THIS THEORY SAYS THAT:

All known living things are made up of one or more cells. All living cells arise from pre-existing cells by division. The cell is the fundamental unit of structure and function in all living organisms. The activity of an organism depends on the total activity of independent cells. Energy flow (metabolism and biochemistry) occurs within cells. Cells contain hereditary information (DNA) which is passed from cell to cell during cell division. All cells are basically the same in chemical composition in organisms of similar species.

PEOPLE DICOVERED CELLS

Robert Hooke In 1665, English Scientist and Microscopist Robert Hooke described a honeycomb-like network of cellulae (Latin for little storage rooms) in cork slice using his primitive compound microscope. Robert Hooke used the term cells to describe units in plant tissue (thick cell walls could be observed). Of course he saw only cell walls because cork cells are dead and without protoplasm. He drew the cells he saw and also coined the word cell.

The word cell is derived from the latin word cellula which means small compartment. Hooke published his findings in his famous work, Micrographia.

Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek In 1670, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (16321723) described cells in a drop of pond water using a microscope. A Dutch businessman and a contemporary of Hooke. He also used microscopes and was a physicist. He made his own fine quality lens for use in monocular microscopes and was the first person to observe bacteria and protozoa. Some of his lenses could magnify objects 250X.

Matthias Jakob Schleiden In 1838, Matthias Jakob Schleiden, a German botanist, concluded that all plant tissues are composed of cells and that an embryonic plant arose from a single cell. He declared that the cell is the basic building block of all plant matter. This statement of Schleiden was the first generalizations concerning cells.

Theodor Schwann In 1839, Theodor Schwann, a German biologist, reached the same conclusion as Schleiden about animal tissue being composed of cells, ending speculations that plants and animals were fundamentally different in structure. Schwann described cellular structures in animal cartilage (rigid extracellular matrix).

He pulled existing observations together into theory that stated: 1. Cells are organisms and all organisms consist of one or more cells. 2. The cell is the basic unit of structure for all organisms and that plants and animals consist of combinations of these organisms which are arranged in accordance with definite rules. In other words, the cell is the basic unit of life.This statement was the second generalization concerning cells and is the most important in the development of biology. It became known as the cell theory.

Rudolf Virchow In 1855, Taking Brown's original description of nuclei and observations by Karl Ngeli on cell division, the German physiologist, physician, pathologist, and anthropologist Rudolf Virchow was able to add a third tenet to the cell theory: Omnis cellula e cellula, or all cells develop only from existing cells.

CELL FUNCTIONS

Growth and metabolism Between successive cell divisions, cells grow through the functioning of cellular metabolism. Cell metabolism is the process by which individual cells process nutrient molecules. Metabolism has two distinct divisions: catabolism, in which the cell breaks down complex molecules to produce energy and reducing power, and anabolism, in which the cell uses energy and reducing power to construct complex molecules and perform other biological functions. Complex sugars consumed by the organism can be broken down into a less chemically complex sugar molecule called glucose. Once inside the cell, glucose is broken down to make adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a form of energy, through two different pathways.

The first pathway, glycolysis, requires no oxygen and is referred to as anaerobic metabolism. Each reaction is designed to produce some hydrogen ions that can then be used to make energy packets (ATP). In prokaryotes, glycolysis is the only method used for converting energy. The second pathway, called the Krebs cycle, or citric acid cycle, occurs inside the mitochondria and can generate enough ATP to run all the cell functions.

Creation Cell division involves a single cell (called a mother cell) dividing into two daughter cells. This leads to growth in multicellular organisms(the growth of tissue) and to procreation (vegetative reproduction) in unicellular organisms. Prokaryotic cells divide by binary fission. Eukaryotic cells usually undergo a process of nuclear division, called mitosis, followed by division of the cell, called cytokinesis. A diploid cell may also undergo meiosis to produce haploid cells, usually four. Haploid cells serve as gametes in multicellular organisms, fusing to form new diploid cells.

DNA replication, or the process of duplicating a cell's genome, is required every time a cell divides. Replication, like all cellular activities, requires specialized proteins for carrying out the job.

Protein synthesis Cells are capable of synthesizing new proteins, which are essential for the modulation and maintenance of cellular activities. This process involves the formation of new protein molecules from amino acid building blocks based on information encoded in DNA/RNA. Protein synthesis generally consists of two major steps: transcription and translation.

Transcription is the process where genetic information in DNA is used to produce a complementary RNA strand. This RNA strand is then processed to give messenger RNA (mRNA), which is free to migrate through the cell. mRNA molecules bind to protein-RNA complexes called ribosomes located in the cytosol, where they are translated into polypeptide sequences. The ribosome mediates the formation of a polypeptide sequence based on the mRNA sequence. The mRNA sequence directly relates to the polypeptide sequence by binding totransfer RNA (tRNA) adapter molecules in binding pockets within the ribosome. The new polypeptide then folds into a functional threedimensional protein molecule.

TWO TYPES OF CELL

Prokaryotic cells
The

prokaryotes are a group of organisms that lack a cell nucleus ,or any othermembrane-bound organelles. The organisms that have a cell nucleus are called eukaryotes. Most prokaryotes are unicellular, but a few such as myxobacteria have multicellular stages in their life cycles.

 Prokaryotes

do not have a nucleus, mitochondria, or any other membrane-bound organelles. In other words, neither their DNA nor any of their other sites of metabolic activity are collected together in a discrete membrane-enclosed area. Instead, everything is openly accessible within the cell, some of which is free-floating. Prokaryotes belong to two taxonomic domains: the bacteria and the archaea.

Eukaryotic cells
A

eukaryote is an organism whose cells contain complex structures enclosed withinmembranes. Eukaryotes may more formally be referred to as the taxon Eukarya or Eukaryota. The defining membrane-bound structure that sets eukaryotic cells apart from prokaryotic cells is the nucleus, or nuclear envelope, within which the genetic material is carried.

 Most

eukaryotic cells also contain other membrane-bound organelles such as mitochondria, chloroplasts and the Golgi apparatus. All species of large complex organisms are eukaryotes, including animals, plants and fungi, although most species of eukaryote are protist microorganisms.