Biology (Cells) help

[GSLeloo]

So yeah, I've always been good at biology but one thing that always got me was the cell... and when I say cell I mean the organelles. I could read word for word what each did but I never understood it.

This is the question I'm stuck on for my science lab...
Below is a list of tissues that have specialized functions and demonstrate corresponding specialization of subcellular structure. Match the tissue with the letter of the organelles listed that would be abundant in these cells.

Tissues.
1. Enzyme (protein) - secreting cells of the pancreas
2. Insect flight muscles
3. Cells lining the respiratory pssages
4. White blood cells that engulf and destroy invading bacteria
5. Leaf cells of cacti

Cell structures and organelles.
a. plasma membrane
b. mitochondrion
c. Golgi complex
d. Chloroplast
e. endoplasmic reticulum
f. cilia and flagella
g. vacuole
h. ribosome
i. lysosome
j. microbodies
k. peroxisomes

[Edaarin]

1. C, E, H
2. B
3. F
4. G, I, K (maybe J)
5. D

They all have A, a plasma membrane

[GSLeloo]

...Edaarin how did you know all that?

[TheEschaton]

Tissues.
1. Enzyme (protein) - secreting cells of the pancreas
2. Insect flight muscles
3. Cells lining the respiratory pssages
4. White blood cells that engulf and destroy invading bacteria
5. Leaf cells of cacti

Cell structures and organelles.
a. plasma membrane
b. mitochondrion
c. Golgi complex
d. Chloroplast
e. endoplasmic reticulum
f. cilia and flagella
g. vacuole
h. ribosome
i. lysosome
j. microbodies
k. peroxisomes

Well, let's do the easy ones first. The cacti leaf would be chloroplasts, easy.

I'd probably say cilia for the respitory one, since most cells that line passageways in the body use cilia to capture things. The function of cells lining the respitory tract would be to capture air, though, so that may be a bit different.

White blood cells would need vacuoles to consume the cells they absorb, right? Vacuoles are where the cell consumes food, no? Or maybe they store food there. Hmmm.

The protein secreting one is easy, ribosomes construct proteins in the cell.

-TheE-

[Edaarin]

1. C, E, and H are all involved in gene transcription and translation into a protein.

EDIT: Golgi complex and ER are both involved in modification and transportation of said proteins.

2. Muscles have a lot of mitochondrion. Heh.
3. Cilia and flagella "beat," moving things along your respiratory system. In your lungs, they're also coated with mucus, and increase the surface area.
4. Vacuoles are created when macrophages engulf foreign material. Lysosome and peroxisomes contain toxins and help lyse, or break open something. Microbodies help target antigens for macrophages.
5. Leaf cells should be heavy in parenchyma tissues, since they're involved in photosynthesis. That means they have a lot of chloroplasts, with some secondary reinforcement from other kinds of cells which aren't listed there.

[Edited on 3-21-2004 by Edaarin]

[HarmNone]

Go, Edaarin! Whee!:thumbsup:

HarmNone is impressed!

[GSLeloo]

Thank you so much Edaarin. I was stressing over this lab and now its over!

[peam]

Cheating will get you nowhere. :no:

[Edaarin]

You're welcome!

You know what, I botched the explanation on microbodies. They're membrane bound things in the cytoplasm that have enzymes and other substances, so examples of microbodies are peroxisomes and lysosomes (which ARE most commonly found in disease fighting cells, so it doesn't change the answer, only the explanation.

I'm not sure what it was I was thinking of that help identify the antigen for the macrophage, and now it's killing me and I'm too lazy to look it up.

[Latrinsorm]

Originally posted by peam
Cheating will get you nowhere. :no: Helping people is always good. :yes:

[GSLeloo]

I wasn't really cheating. If I was cheating I'd have him do my entire lab. I wrote the three pages of questions, I just didn't understand the matching. Cause um.. don't all cells have those organelles/

[TheEschaton]

Yeah, but in specialized cells, they have more of certain organelles to help your function, which is what the question was asking.


-TheE-

[ElanthianSiren]

1. Enzyme (protein) - secreting cells of the pancreas
2. Insect flight muscles
3. Cells lining the respiratory pssages
4. White blood cells that engulf and destroy invading bacteria
5. Leaf cells of cacti

Cell structures and organelles.
a. plasma membrane -- surrounds all cells
b. mitochondrion --
c. Golgi complex
d. Chloroplast
e. endoplasmic reticulum
f. cilia and flagella
g. vacuole
h. ribosome
i. lysosome
j. microbodies
k. peroxisomes <<


If your teacher is asking what is contained in one entire cell with regard to #5, the cacti, I would add peroxisomes, golgi apparatus, mitochondria, and endoplasmic recticulum (ER), to what E already said.

Further, you might be able to add vacuole, but I wouldn't try it. Both cells contain vacuoles, but the plant one is generally called the central vacuole, so I wouldn't risk that.

In short:

Plant cells lack:
lysosomes
centrioles
flagella

Animal cells lack:
Chloroplasts
Central vacuoles
Tonoplast (goes with central vacuole)
Cell walls
and the Plasmadesmata

If you keep this in mind as your foundation (first eliminations) then consider what it is each structure is doing (final eliminations), your work should be easier in the future.

Another way to look at it is a cell is like a separate entity that performs all functions. So every plant cell performs photosynthesis. Every respiratory cell must be able to perform respiration and thus, they need every constituent to carry out those roles.


Hope that helps,
Melissa

[Edaarin]

What Melissa said. It's important to keep in mind there may be analogous organelles in animals too (ie, gap junctions perform the same function as plasmodesmata in plant cells).

[ElanthianSiren]

Originally posted by TheEschaton
Yeah, but in specialized cells, they have more of certain organelles to help your function, which is what the question was asking.


-TheE-

Is it? Question is worded poorly IMO then. How about this:

Name the specialized/most abundant tissues contained within these cells

1. White blood cells.
2. Respiratory cells.
3. Leaf Cells
4. Enzymatic Cells (ie Pancreatic)
5 etc


Or would that be just...too direct?

Honestly, you could make an argument in either way considering abdundant is a judgement call relative to what is also there. Take for instance -- deciduous plants vs. C4 plants. It would help to know as well what level of biology we're talking about. :)

-Melissa

[Sean]

I don't know that it's really that bad as long as shes involved in the disucssion that forming and she's learning the material. If she just took the answers and ran then it would be bad.

[Latrinsorm]

Originally posted by Tijay
If she just took the answers and ran then it would be bad. Why?

[Edaarin]

It sounds like AP Biology questions.

Cacti are CAM plants, aren't they?

[GSLeloo]

It is AP biology. The thing is, we've never gone over specialized cells. We spent the past week looking at different specimens under the microscope and drawing them but we haven't actually studied them.

I'm beginning to understand it a bit better but I guess it's hard for me because it's not like something I can easily connect to or recognize. I know what an arm does cause I see it, I can't really see a cell and familiarize myself with it.