- Emerging property : are properties that arise through interactions among smaller parts that alone do not exhibit such properties. Example: a cell as the small part. A cell does not exhibit the same properties as when many cells are put together to form a multicelular organism. To illustrate: single cells come together to form a tissues. Many different tissues can get together to form an organ. Different organs together can form a digestive system. What the digestive system can achieve is far far greater than what the single cells would ever be capable of. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Specialized tissues can develop by cell differenciation
Stem cell : Undifferenciated cells which are able to reproduce. Theses cells have no job yet. But when they differenciate, they specialize into a particular kind of cell. Example: stem cells taken from bone marrow, can differenciate and become Erythrocytes (red blood cells) or Leucocytes (white blood cells, of which you can have Neutrophil, Esinophil, Lymphocyte). In this sense stem cells can form specialized tissue, here a specialized form known as connective tissue known as blood.
Differenciation and Gene Expression
Inside a Eucaryotic cell, you have a nucleus. And inside the nucleus you have DNA, and Eucaryotic cells, the DNS takes the form of Chromosomes. The chromosomers are made up of different sections.
Mitochondrion: organelle that powers the cell, use it as context for looking at the processes of cell metabolism
Metabolism: set of life sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. What chemical reactions allow this organism to stay alive.
Alive: said of any organism ticking the boxes of heuristically measured processes that appear to allow it to, at some point, perform the actions allowing it to reproduce. Alive as defined in terms of metabolism: an organism with an active metabolism.
F1FO ATP synthase: The molecular machine that is responsible for the synthesis of the ATP that your cells require to do work. A protein that catalyses the formation of the energy storage molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP) using adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and inorganic phosphate (Pi). ATP synthase is a molecular machine. The overall reaction catalysed by ATP synthase is: ADP + Pi + 2H+out <=> ATP + H2O + 2H+in
Adenosine triphosphate (ATP): is an organic compound that provides energy to drive many processes in living cells, such as muscle contraction, nerve impulse propagation, condensate dissolution and chemical synthesis. Found in all forms of life, ATP is often referred to as the “molecular unit of currency” of intracellular energy transfer.
Course structure:
- Explain how a cell works by its internal structure and organisation
- How does mitochondria give a cell ability to generate ATP
- How cells metabolise food to provide the molecules necessary for mitochondrial function
- How the structure and activity of the F1PO ATP synthase leads to production of ATP
- What experimental techniques allow for mitochondrial structure and function in the laboratory