Question

Lab 2 Cell Structure and Function. Post -Lab question. Would Ana animal cell be able to survive without a mitochondria? Why or why not

Answer 1

Definition of Cell: Cell is called the structural and functional unit of life. As it is said, everything that is alive, made of cell and their synchronous function makes it alive. Cell is basically collection of some organic materials enclosed by a lipid membrane. The main ingredients of the cell can be summed up to Carbon, Hydrogen (makes the hydrocarbon compounds), Nitrogen and Oxygen.

Cell Structure & Function: Cell is a lipid bound structure which acts as a barrier from the environment. It helped in compartmentalization of the organic materials from the outer aqueous environment.

Cells can mainly be divided structurally into Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes. The basic structure is the outer lipid bilayer membrane, inside cytosol, and the genetic material. Most of the prokaryotes also contain cell wall (basically made of some sugar chains). Plant cells among eukaryotes also have cell wall made of mainly cellulose.

Inside of a prokaryotic cell is simple. Inside the cytosol it has several proteins floating around and doing their jobs. In almost the center there lies the genetic material that is basically DNA. DNA is a double stranded deoxy-ribose sugar made nucleic acid. It holds the genetic informations which is relayed down to functional proteins.

The inside of an eukaryotic cell is fairly complex. It has further compartmentalized into cell organelles. The genetic material of these cells are kept hidden inside Nucleus, which is the hub of RNA synthesis. The proteins are made by ribosome in the cytosol, either freely or bound to Endoplasmic Reticulum. This is a tubular organelle which helps in protein synthesis, processing and sending it to Golgi. Now Golgi is another tubular  structure which upon receiving packed proteins from ER, it edits them completely and sends them to their destination.

In eukaryotic cells there is an organelle called Mitochondria. It is the metabolic and energy hub of the cell. It produces various metabolic products and also energy as ATP molecules. Except these organelles there are other organelles such as Lysosome as the cellular dumping ground, Peroxisomes as an anti oxidant supplier.

In plant cells there is an organelle called Chloroplast which helps in photosynthesis.

Apart from these it is also worth mentioning about the internal Cytoskeleton. These are basically protein filaments which form a meshwork inside the cell to hold the structure of it. These are Actin, Microtubule and intermediary filaments.

The basic cell structures varies with organisms to organisms, tissue to tissue, cell to cell. In case of prokaryotes, because they have cell wall they more of a rigid structure and hence they can be of solid geometrical shapes like cuboid or spherical. Eukaryotic animal cells which have no cell walls have no solid structure itself, but when they are part of tissue they can form a regular structure.

Would animal cell be able to survive without a mitochondria? Why or Why Not?

Mitochondria is metabolic and energy center of the cell; the two major functions that drive the whole cell. Mitochondria senses the status of the cell and acts upon it. It takes the small molecule metabolites as a reading to manage energy generation. ATP is termed as the energy currency of the cell. Mitochondria has this protein complexes on its membrane called Electron Transport Chain which takes electron from food fuels such as NADH⁺ and FADH₂ and transfer it to Oxygen to generate ATP. ATP is required in most of the processes inside a cell, whether its protein synthesis or RNA transcription, cell survival or cell division. As animal cells has no chloroplast (which also can generate ATP to some extent), so it only relies on mitochondria for generation of energy. So an animal cell cannot live without a functional mitochondria.