Introduction
Welcome to an in-depth exploration of the structure and function of the cell! In this article, we will cover the key components of the cell, their unique structures, and the vital roles they play in the cellular environment. Understanding cell biology is crucial for grasping how various life processes are interconnected, so let’s dive in!
The Nucleus: The Brain of the Cell
The nucleus is often referred to as the brain of the cell due to its role in regulating cellular activities and housing genetic material. Let’s break down its key components:
Nuclear Envelope
- Structure: The nuclear envelope consists of two membranes: an outer and an inner layer.
- Function: The outer layer is studded with ribosomes and facilitates the transport of mRNA from the nucleus to the cytoplasm through nuclear pores.
Nuclear Pores
- Description: These are protein complexes that span the nuclear envelope.
- Function: They regulate the exchange of materials such as ions, proteins, and RNA between the nucleus and the cytoplasm.
The Nucleolus
- Function: It is responsible for synthesizing ribosomal RNA (rRNA) and assembling ribosomes from rRNA and proteins, which are then sent to the cytoplasm. For more details on the nucleus, check out our article on Understanding the Structure and Function of the Cell Nucleus.
Chromatin
- Composition: Chromatin consists of DNA and histone proteins.
- Types: There are two forms of chromatin: euchromatin (loosely packed, active in transcription) and heterochromatin (densely packed, inactive).
- Roles: It is crucial for the processes of DNA replication and transcription.
The Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER)
The endoplasmic reticulum is a membranous network involved in a multitude of functions within the cell.
Rough Endoplasmic Reticulum (Rough ER)
- Description: The rough ER has ribosomes on its surface, giving it a rough appearance.
- Functions:
- Protein Synthesis: The rough ER synthesizes proteins destined for secretion, incorporation into the cell membrane, or for lysosomes.
- Protein Folding: It also assists in the proper folding of proteins and post-translational modifications such as glycosylation.
Smooth Endoplasmic Reticulum (Smooth ER)
- Description: Smooth ER lacks ribosomes.
- Functions:
- Lipid Synthesis: It synthesizes lipids, including phospholipids and cholesterol, which are essential for membrane integrity. Learn more about how membranes function in our piece on Understanding the Cell Membrane: Structure, Function, and Importance.
- Detoxification: The smooth ER metabolizes drugs and toxins, especially in liver cells.
- Calcium Storage: It plays a role in storing calcium ions, particularly in muscle cells, aiding muscle contraction.
The Golgi Apparatus: The Shipping Center
The Golgi apparatus plays a critical role in modifying, sorting, and packaging proteins and lipids from the ER for delivery to their intended destinations.
- Cis and Trans Face: The golgi has a cis face (receiving side) and a trans face (shipping side), facilitating the movement of vesicles.
- Functions:
- Modification: Further modifies proteins through glycosylation.
- Packaging: Packages proteins into vesicles for transport to lysosomes, the cell membrane, or secretion outside the cell.
Mitochondria: The Powerhouse of the Cell
Often referred to as the powerhouse of the cell, mitochondria are essential for energy production. For a closer look at their importance, read our summary on Understanding Mitochondria: Structure, Function, and Importance.
- Structure: Mitochondria have a double-membrane structure with an inner membrane that folds into cristae, increasing surface area for enzymatic reactions.
- Functions:
- ATP Production: ATP is produced primarily through oxidative phosphorylation, utilizing the electron transport chain.
- Metabolic Pathways: Mitochondria are involved in the Krebs cycle, fatty acid oxidation, and other metabolic pathways.
The Cytoskeleton: The Cell's Framework
The cytoskeleton provides structural support and aids in cellular movement. It consists of three main types of fibers:
Microfilaments
- Composition: Primarily made of actin.
- Functions:
- Muscle contraction in interaction with myosin.
- Facilitating cell shape change (e.g., during cytokinesis).
Intermediate Filaments
- Function: Provide structural stability and resist mechanical stress, anchoring organelles in place.
Microtubules
- Composition: Made from alpha and beta tubulin.
- Functions:
- Intracellular transport via motor proteins (dynein and kinesin).
- Cell division, aiding in the separation of chromosomes during mitosis.
- Formation of cilia and flagella for cell motility.
Lysosomes: The Cell's Cleanup Crew
Lysosomes contain hydrolytic enzymes responsible for breaking down waste materials and cellular debris.
- Functions:
- Macromolecule Breakdown: Enzymes like proteases and lipases break down unwanted biomolecules.
- Autophagy: Involved in recycling cellular components.
- Autolysis: Can release enzymes in damaged cells to facilitate self-digestion.
Peroxisomes: The Detoxifiers
Peroxisomes contain enzymes that detoxify harmful substances and help metabolize fatty acids.
- Key Enzymes: Include catalase and oxidase, which convert hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen, preventing oxidative stress.
Conclusion
In summary, the cell is a complex and dynamic unit that relies on the interaction of various organelles, each with specific structures and functions. Understanding these components is essential for grasping how life operates at a microscopic level. From the nucleus directing cellular activities to lysosomes managing waste, each part plays a crucial role in maintaining cellular health and functionality. Thank you for exploring the fascinating world of cell structure and function with us!
all right ninja nerds in this video today we are going to be talking about the structure and function of the cell
also if you guys haven't already go watch our video where we talk about how i study and prepare for videos within
that i kind of gave you guys a sneak peek of how i pretty much went through studied this topic developed notes
diagrams and then drew it all on the board now we're going to go through it before we get into this video though
please continue to support us by hitting that like button commenting down in the comment section and please subscribe all
right ninja nerds let's get into it all right an engineer so we're going to take a tour through this cell talking about
what all the structures of the cell are and then what they do so the first thing we got to talk about
is the brain of the cell the pretty much the center of the cell where everything that a cell is kind of really begins in
all centers around and that is the nucleus this is the big mama
the nucleus now what we have to talk about with the nucleus is a couple different components of the nucleus what
are the different components of the nucleus well the first part of the nucleus is as
you can see you see this kind of like blue membrane that's double layered here so you have an outer layer
and then you have a inner layer on this side right so this is our inner
layer these two components make up what's called the nuclear
envelope so you have an outer layer and then you have an inner layer i know that sounds pretty obvious but there's a
different there's different functions for the outer and the inner layers so the outer layer let's actually first
say the nuclear envelope you have two layers the outer layer and the inner layer
what is the purpose of these layers so the first thing that you need to
remember is that the outer layer is where you have lots of ribosomes so ribosomes are
actually going to be kind of found outside on that outer layer the reason why is in the actual nucleus you make
you take dna and convert it into a structure called mrna and mrna has to move out via the nuclear pores and bind
onto ribosomes on these outer membranes which then get moved to the rough er we'll talk about that a little bit later
but that's the big thing i want you to remember about the outer membrane the inner membrane
has a very very important protein structure that binds to the the dna and histone proteins and controls a lot of
cell division it's this green protein here that green protein that lines the inner membrane is called lamins and
lamins are very very important structures that control the structure of the nuclear envelope they're also
important for cell division and interacting a lot with the chromatin there's actually a disorder whenever
there's a mutation in this lamins it causes progerias so it's important that we kind of know these two components of
the nuclear envelope the next thing is in the nuclear envelope you see these red proteins that are dispersed
throughout it those red proteins that are dispersed throughout it these are called nuclear
pores so what are these called nuclear pores and the whole purpose is it's honestly pretty straightforward right if
we want to move things in ions or proteins or nucleotides or different things
in and out of the nucleus that's the function of the nuclear pores and there is things we'll talk about
this a little bit later in a more specific video where we go more in detail on the nucleus but there's
special types of transporters that are associated with those nuclear pores we'll talk about those in other videos
but again another important thing that's a part of the nuclear envelope if you will that actually kind of uh
kind of separates different portions where there's little pores is called these nuclear pores
and again the whole purpose of this is to allow for transport and what kind of transport
transport between the cytoplasm to the nucleus or nucleus to the cytoplasm that's all it is pretty straightforward
the next one is this red diced up structure here called the nucleolus the nucleolus is very very important and
the reason why is this is the site of a particular type of rna synthesis you know there is a particular type of
rna what we call rrna so we're going to denote this as r rna synthesis
this occurs in what structure this occurs within the nucleolus now the reason why that's important is
when you take rrna you synthesize it within the nucleolus and you combine this with proteins so then combine
with other types of small proteins guess what you make you make ribosomes
so really what we can say is is that the nucleolus which is a component in the nucleus is important for making
ribosomes which is made up of rrna and small proteins the last part of the nucleus is all of
these blue structures you see all these blue structures that are kind of dispersed throughout i kind of made
circles around them this is called chromatin this is called chromatin
and chromatin is very very important because this is what really makes up who we are
as kind of humans and it's very important for us to know the different components of chromatin
so within the nucleus you have this structure called chromatin so what in the heck is chromatin chromatin is made
up of two primary things dna and proteins but the main protein
is histone proteins histones these two things make up our actual
genetic material and this chromatin can actually come in two forms two important forms
one is called euchromatin and euchromatine is the loose chromatin and it's the one that's going to be more
for expression of the dna to transcribe the dna and make different types of mrna or undergo replication so euchromatin
should be more in the center of the actual nucleus and the next one here is going to be
hetero the heterochromatin and the heterochromatin is going to be the tight
chromatin this is going to be the chromatin that you're actually going to see
closer towards the inner membrane of that nuclear envelope so we're understanding this right so we
know the different structures and the different components here of the nucleus the last thing that i want us to
understand here is what in the heck does the nucleus do we're going to go into way more detail in this in future videos
but what you need to remember is that chromatin which is made up of dna we can take dna and do a bunch of things with
it what can we do with it we can take dna and we can make more dna
what is this called dna replication i can take dna and make rna
and that is called transcription and then also you need to know that there's different types of rna what are the
different types of rna there is t rna
there is mrna and
r rna so it's important for us to understand this kind of things that are happening
with inside the nucleus which is what you have dna replication and transcription and particularly making of
rna molecules and these are the rna molecules and again we'll go over these in more detail in future videos but this
tells us what the function of the nucleus is and what the components of it are let's move on to the next organelles
okay so the next thing that you guys need to know here is this next filamentous membranous structure that is
located within the cell this beautiful organelle is called the rough endoplasmic reticulum so it's
called the rough endoplasmic reticulum we're going to put e r so the rough er that's commonly how
we refer to it as right so the rough endoplasmic reticulum or the rough er now the rough er if you notice it's this
filamentous kind of network here but there's another structure here called the smooth endoplasmic reticulum
so you have the rough endoplasmic reticulum and then you have the smooth the smooth endoplasmic reticulum
the smooth endoplasmic reticulum and rough endoplasmic reticulum differ in what way this is very simple
you see these little red dots that are located on the rough endoplasmic reticulum
it's called ribosomes so within the rough er this contains
ribosomes on that outer kind of membrane structure on the smooth er there is no ribosomes
that's really it there's nothing much more that you have to know about kind of the structure of the rough er and the
structure of the smoothie are you know that it's an organelle and the big difference between these
structure wise is roughy iris ribosomes smooth the r does not have ribosomes so now the next thing has to come down
to what are the differences in function here that's really where it kind of lays in right
so the first thing we have to do is before we move into what it does we have to kind of pick up a quick point here
from the nucleus and move to the rough er so you know we said within the nucleus
you have dna and from dna you can undergo transcription what is that called
whenever you go from dna to rna whenever i go from dna and i make a molecule
called mrna and that mrna then binds with a ribosome here's our ribosome a little like red
dot there that ribosome will then do what it'll undergo the process of translation
taking the rna and making proteins well what happens is that ribosome it's going to start synthesizing and making
proteins from the mrna so now i'm going to have this protein that gets pushed in here
from the ribosome now that's important because the rough er is obviously going to be a site of
protein synthesis then that's one thing we can say it could be a site of protein synthesis because that's where the
ribosomes are kind of sitting on so that's one function of the rough er so one function of the rough er we can say
is is it's a site of protein synthesis site
of protein synthesis and we're going to talk a little bit
because there's different types of proteins that we make proteins that can be within the cytosol proteins that can
be within different organelles proteins that we can secrete proteins that we can put into the membrane
generally the proteins that the rough er is making is going to be proteins that will become
lysosomes so proteins that will be incorporated into our lysosomes proteins that will go
and get incorporated into the different organelles like the membranes of organelles or the cell membrane
or proteins that will be excreted so that is really the big thing that i
want you to remember about the rough er site of protein synthesis but particularly for these types of proteins
the next thing is what else does it do with the proteins we know what synthesizes them but you know what else
proteins have to fold a particular way for it to be particularly functional so it also helps with the folding
process so it plays around what's called protein folding that's very important
so plays around protein folding and the next thing is not only does it help with folding the protein in a
particular way it also has little enzymes located kind of in this actual endoplasmic reticulum
that can add on little residues little sugar residues onto this protein making it active what is this called it's
called glycosylation so it can perform what's called glycosylation
like cosylation and there's a particular type we'll go into this more in more detail but for the most part it is
called in type glycosylation and all that means is if i
were to take a protein here i took it the mrna took it to the ribosome ribosome bound to the rough er
it made the protein push the protein in the filamentous network of the rough er it started folding and then once we have
that protein here that's folded properly i'm going to just add on a little sugar residue
so this is going to be a little sugar residue and this is going to be my protein
and this is important because this is the way that we activate these proteins so that is the function of the rough
endoplasmic reticulum now the next thing one last thing for this is remember i told you that the site of
protein synthesis for these particular things so in order for after the rough er has
kind of gone through this process of synthesizing it folding it and then glycosylating it it then has to package
it so then what happens is it'll package off so what happens let's
say here's the protein the protein will actually bud into this little
portion of the actual rough endoplasmic reticulum and when it does that that'll actually butt off
and then i have a vesicle and within that vesicle is going to be my protein what protein will become a lysosomal
protein and membrane protein are excreted protein but in order for that to happen i have
to move this towards the next organelle which will be the golgi apparatus we'll get to that one in a second but here's
going to be that protein that was coming from the rough endoplasmic reticulum and moving towards
the golgi so now we know all the functions of the rough er now we've got to go over the functions
of the smoothie are the smooth endoplasmic reticulum this is a very interesting structure so
there's a lot of different types of enzymes located within this smooth endoplasmic reticulum particularly
enzymes that are associated with lipid synthesis that's big thing i want you to take away from this so it's primarily
associated with what lipid synthesis there's going to be a bunch of different enzymes located within these
organelles within this organelle and what kind of lipids are we synthesizing fatty acids
fatty acids are a big one phospholipids are a big one what else you know there's another
really important cholesterol molecule with cholesterol so i kind of give it away so cholesterol and cholesterol is
important because this can become hormones steroid hormones testosterone progesterone estrogen all that good
stuff so this is the big thing i want you to remember is this is the site of lipid
synthesis so we take precursor molecules that we get from the cell let's say here's a precursor molecule
that precursor molecule for the fatty acids phospholipids cholesterol it will get taken up into this smooth
endoplasmic reticulum the enzymes in it will start using these precursors to pop out
little cholesterol or lipid molecules so now from this
we're going to have the smoothie r take the precursor molecules perform the lipid synthesis process with the enzymes
and then butt off a particular vesicle which is going to contain what
fatty acids phospholipids and cholesterol and then guess where we could send this we could all send it
again to the golgi or maybe even send it to the cell membrane and then from the cell membrane we may release out
cholesterol maybe release out fatty acids pretty cool right there's another set of enzymes that are
important here the next set of enzymes is called cyp450 you're like what the heck is that
cyp450 enzymes are very very important for detoxification
so you know whenever your liver your liver has a very high concentration of these enzymes because that's our detox
center right so if you go to your liver there is lots of this enzyme
and the reason why is any drugs any toxins any alcohol you know alcohol ethanol
etoh any of these things have to go to the liver
and what your liver does is is it undergoes a process called biotransformation or xenobiotic
metabolism and it breaks down these substances and it's because of these enzymes
located within the smooth endoplasmic reticulum so it undergoes what's called bio
transformation ba-boom that is important
the next thing here this is an interesting one you know within our cells
we have glycogen right you know glycogen it's basically a a big polymer of glucose and whenever our body needs
energy that glycogen can get broken down into glucose but there's a particular step whenever
you're breaking down glycogen into glucose there's an intermediate between this called glucose 6 phosphate
well in order for glucose 6-phosphate to get converted into glucose guess what it needs
there's a particular enzyme on the smooth endoplasmic reticulum and that enzyme will need to take the
glucose in give a little transporter that'll take the glucose 6-phosphate in and then a
particular enzyme that'll rip off that phosphate on the six carbon of glucose and make off glucose 6 phosphate and
make glucose so the important thing to remember here
is that this actual smooth endoplasmic reticulum is also important for glucose 6-phosphate metabolism so it's also
important for glucose 6-phosphate metabolism
baboon roasted last one last function you know this is a smooth
endoplasmic reticulum it's in in a lot of different organs but you know organs that contain lots and lots and lots of
calcium like in our muscles there's kind of a an analogous structure there called the
sarcoplasmic reticulum these can store lots of calcium and you know there's little pumps that
are located on the smooth endoplasmic reticulum and whenever we need calcium whether it be
for different types of transport processes or for muscle contraction guess what we can pump that calcium out
into the cytosol and utilize it for all these different types of chemical processes so what is the last function
here for the smooth endoplasmic reticulum it also stores calcium
ba-boom all right we've covered the functions of the rough er and the smoothie are let's
now move on to the golgi apparatus all right ninja nurse so what have we established up to this point so we know
that we've understood the function of the rough endoplasmic reticulum we understand the function of the smooth
endoplasmic reticulum and again to kind of go off of that that smooth er again what did we say it could also make
the different phospholipids and cholesterol and different types of fatty acids and that also from the
smooth endoplasmic reticulum can get sent to the golgi now the vesicles that are coming from these
two areas primarily the rough endoplasmic reticulum we're going to focus on from this point but again
realize that everything from the smooth er as well all right so what is the name of this next organelle that we have to
talk about this is a very very important structure called the golgi apparatus right so we're going to call the golgi
now the golgi apparatus is a very important kind of like packaging organelle if you will so it takes these
vesicles coming from the rough er from the smoothie are and when it takes it into the golgi there's an anatomical
term here on this side of the golgi where these vesicles from the rough yarn smoothie
are going to this part of the golgi here is called the cis golgi
okay or they call the cis face of the golgi but we're going to call it cis golgi
then what happens is through these systematic steps these proteins and different types of fatty
molecules that get taken to the golgi will go through the golgi and as it goes through the golgi it'll actually bud off
right so then you're going to butt off some type of molecule in the golgi whether that be a protein whether that
be lipids cholesterol whatever it buds off and then leaves the golgi this side where the vesicles are coming
out of the gold gene going towards lysosomes or cell membranes or whatever this is called the
trans golgi or the trans of the golgi so that's an important kind of
anatomical term or structure component of the actual golgi that you need to know
the next thing here is we have to kind of primarily focus on the function so primary function is it's receiving
vesicles containing proteins and different types of sugar molecules maybe attached to it as
well as different lipids from the rough er and smoothie guard that's the first function so first function that you need
to know here so it's receiving vesicles from
the rough er and the smooth er that's the first thing we know it's receiving the vesicles
containing proteins or fatty molecules now let's focus on those proteins because that's where it's more important
the proteins that are getting taken into the golgi it might have to modify we saw that it
was folded and modified a little bit in the rough er but the golgi might have to modify it even a little bit more and how
does it do that so this modification step is very important and it's again
through a couple different reactions remember we have what's called glycosylation reactions that we talked
about with the roughy are the golgi can do the same thing it can do what's called a glycosylation
but this glycosylation reactions where it adds on sugar residues there's two types one is the n type
and one is o type what's really important to remember is that the golgi is the only one that can
do o type glycosylations in other words i'm adding a sugar residue onto the oxygen component of a protein that's all
it really means in type you're adding a sugar residue to the nitrogen component of the protein
nothing special the other really important step here is it also has to phosphorylate specific
types of proteins and that is very important there's a disease called eye cell disease and it's actually related
to this phosphorylation reaction so that's why we need to know it so it modifies proteins and some lipid
molecules through these glycosylation and phosphorylation reactions the next thing is
is it packages these molecules right
and then after it packages these molecules into their own little vesicles remember how we said that these
molecules will go through the golgi undergo these modifications get stuck into like a little vesicle butt off
and then pop off here it's going to pop off right so now i got my vesicle containing
my proteins and my lipids and all these things that have been modified even more now what happens is
these molecules we already talked about where they're going to go they're going to go
and become lysosomal proteins they're going to go and become membrane proteins or they're going to go and be excreted
out of the cell that is the destination and the function of the golgi apparatus so now we
understand that now that we've done that we have to talk about another little structure here
which is our cell membrane it's another component of the cell all right so the next really really important component
of the cell is the cell membrane so what we're going to do is we're going to kind of zoom in
on a different part here of the cell right which is our cell membrane and there's different components of the cell
membrane so if you look here you see like these little red dots with like little you know fingers hanging out
this is a part of what's called our phospholipid bilayer so when we talk about the cell membrane there's a bunch
of different structures that are involved within the cell membrane and they obviously carry out a very
important function so what are the different components of the cell membrane the first component
here is these little red little thingies what are these little red thingies these are called this is a part of your
phospholipid bilayer so you have two components of it if we kind of zoom out on this little guy
you have these two components this head component of this phospholipid bilayer is actually the phospholipid
and what you need to know about this is that this is polar what does that mean polar means it's water soluble so it's
the hydrophilic portion it can interact with water because it has lots of negative charges
on it the other component here is the little tail this tail these are fatty acids and
fatty acids are really saturated with hydrogen and so because of that they are very non-polar
hydrophobic don't like to interact with water because they have no real negative or slight changes in charge
that's the important thing here so we have this on both sides on the inner cell surface you would have this
phospholipid kind of portion pointing inwards on the outer side you would have it pointing outwards and then you have
the tails pointing in towards one another the next thing is you see this little
green structure which is kind of lodged between these phospholipid
this green structure here is called cholesterol now you're like like what the heck why
is cholesterol coming oh and they even add on here where could that cholesterol come from the smooth er
we packaged it sent it to the golgi and then incorporate it into the membrane we're putting things together ninja
nerds but the cholesterol is also incorporated in there and the cholesterol is important because
it controls like fluidity okay so it controls fluidity all right so again to recap this whole idea of
cholesterol with fluidity again it's just important to remember that the amount of cholesterol if you wanted to
think about like this the amount of cholesterol in the cell membrane the more of it you have
the less space there's going to be between the phospholipids so there's less fluidity so more cholesterol less
fluidity and the less cholesterol you have here the more space there's going to be between the phospholipids and so
there's going to be more fluidity so less cholesterol more fluidity so that's an important concept with that
the next component of the cell membrane so we have the cholesterol we have the phospholipid bilayer the next big
component here is the proteins so the next one that you're going to have here is these little proteins
and these proteins here my pink marker here these proteins there's different types
of proteins there's what's called integral proteins and peripheral proteins
and what is really really important for these proteins is that they have various different functions they can act as
transporters they can act as little enzymes they can act as linker proteins between other cells so they have a lot
of different components a lot of different functions to them but again there is integral proteins and
peripheral proteins the big thing i want you to take away from this
of the cell membrane is that it basically acts as a barrier i mean i know that sounds super obvious
but it is a barrier it's a selectively permeable barrier and only allows for particular types of diffusion that we'll
get into later but there is what's called simple diffusion
right there's what's called facilitated diffusion
and then there's different types of what's called vesicular transport
and all of these types of processes are involving the cell membrane so in other words moving things from outside the
cell to inside the cell we have particular types of processes that we'll have to go into more detail about
but again big thing i want you to take away from the cell membrane is these different components and how it acts as
a barrier for particular types of transport processes all right let's move on to the lysosomes
all right so the next structure here is going to be our lysosomes our beautiful little lysosomes now these are very very
cool kind of organelles
now what lysosomes are important is they're like these little spherical organelles
and they contain very interesting little enzymes inside of them and these enzymes are called hydrolytic
enzymes and really the simplest way of describing these hydrolytic enzymes is
you have different types you have proteases which means that they break down
proteins you have nucleases which means that they break down nucleic acids you have lipases which means they break down
lipids and you have glucosidases which means they break down
carbohydrates so all of these hydrolytic enzymes are located within these little organelles
so why is that important any macromolecules that you bring into
the cell whether that be from a white blood cell undergoing what's called phagocytosis whether that be you
actually undergoing an endocytosis process from uh it's called clathrin-coated mediated endocytosis
that whole process when you're bringing something in you're bringing in particle matter
and these lysosomes are responsible for using these enzymes to break down macromolecules such as proteins nucleic
acids lipids and carbohydrates that's all they do so that's important thing to remember from these hydrolytic enzymes
is they're going to be responsible for doing what these all
break down macromolecules they break down macromolecules their respective
macromolecules as we already said okay that's one thing that i really want you to remember the second thing
you know when organelles are getting worn down maybe our mitochondria it's just it's had a rough day maybe the
cytoskeleton's starting to get all jacked up maybe our ribosomes have just they've pooped out and they're done
when these organelles have reached the end of their kind of let's say functional capacity we don't want to
keep them anymore we want to recycle them we want to break out with the old in with the new so what happens is these
lysosomes you'll actually take and package let's say that the ribosomes are done they're
tired they're pooped out i'm going to form a little vesicle around these ribosomes and then what i'm going to do
is i'm going to send it to the lysosome and what did i say that the ribosomes are made up of proteins and rna
so what do you think which enzymes are going to start breaking down this ribosome if you bring it to this
lysosome the proteases and the nucleases and it'll start breaking down the actual organelle what is that called autophagy
so another important thing that you have to remember is that this is one thing breaking down
macromolecules the second thing is it undergoes auto phagy
of organelles ba-boom last thing
let's say that a cell has actually been severely damaged you've really damaged this cell the
point of the cell is at living and surviving anymore is that it's it's not going to happen
you know what i'm going to do i'm going to just have these lysosomes bust open
and i'm going to have all of these enzymes proteases nucleases lipase glucosidases guess what they're going to
do they're going to break down all the macromolecule components of the cell what is that called that's called
autolysis so that's the next thing to remember is autolysis of
damaged cells okay so cells that even if they are damaged and you want to repair them
there's no point of even repairing them at that point it's time to just start all over these things will just bust
open and release their enzymes and start breaking down the cell this is the functions of the lysosomes
they're little angry little buggers aren't they all right next one pretty cool ones
these are actually kind of one of my favorite organelles and these are called peroxisomes
so peroxisomes these are also spherical kind of like little organelles
and they contain a lot of different enzymes but by far one of the most interesting enzymes that they contain
is there's two of them one is called catalase and the other one is called oxidase
they have other enzymes okay they have like other like metabolic enzymes we're going to title
them as that because it can be kind of confusing if you get into more detail than that but these are
the big enzymes so the first one i want you to remember is the catalases oxidases and then other metabolic
enzymes why am i kind of telling you all of these things
well the catalase in the oxidase is important for free radicals you know whenever a cell
normally obtains oxygen that oxygen can get sometimes converted into what's called a superoxide anion
then that superoxide anti can get converted into hydrogen peroxide and then that hydrogen peroxide can get
converted into what's called a hydroxyl radical these things right here from here to
here all of these molecules are free radicals very dangerous little suckers can bind onto proteins and nucleic acids
and cell membrane and just jack the cell up we don't want these things to accumulate
the particular one that loves to accumulate though in these peroxisomes because of what's called fatty acid
metabolism is hydrogen peroxide it really likes to accumulate in there so what happens is
these peroxisomes have lots of this catalase enzyme and what they do is they take this
hydrogen peroxide and use that catalase enzyme to convert this into
water and oxygen which is not that's not that dangerous right that's
what we want so that's one of the beautiful things be thankful for these suckers these little
peroxisomes they're not they're constantly breaking down this hydrogen peroxide which is a potential free
radical and making water and oxygen that's one thing you know it's important for fatty acid metabolism so they
contain little enzymes here particularly catalysts you know catalase not only is important for these free
radicals but it also can break down fatty acids the first step in fatty acid metabolism so it plays around what's
called fatty acid oxidation without going into too much detail there's actually two types alpha
and beta and really all this is is there's diff what's that called branch chain alpha breaks down what's called
branch chain fatty acids and then beta breaks down it's called very long chain fatty acids but either
way you're breaking down these fatty acids into what's called acetyl-coa molecules
then not only can it break down fatty acids but it can actually break down the fatty
acids into acetyl coa and then we can use those acetyl-coa molecules to make lipids
so we can actually make it can make lipids and there's a very particular type of
lipid and cholesterol and you know cholesterol is important
because this is also important for making different types of hormones steroid hormones and bile acids
but this is the one i want to focus on for a second the lipid that it makes is very
important within the white matter of the brain called plasmalogin
and this plasmalogin is a very particular type of lipid that is important for
the white matter so it's an important component of the myelin
within the white matter so you can have an idea that if there's an issue with the peroxisomes and they can't actually
synthesize plasmalogen what happens to the white matter there may be a decrease in white matter production and that may
lead to some injuries to the actual nervous system the last thing i want you to remember
is that there's also a teensy bit of alcohol metabolism so it also can break
down ethanol there's a tiny little enzyme that catalase enzyme again coming into
play not only with the fatty acids but also with the ethanol metabolism it can also break down ethanol so these
are some of the functions of the peroxisomes very very important type of little organelle now that we've covered
that one let's go into the mitochondria all right ninja so the next organelle that we're going to talk about here is
our mitochondria now the mitochondria is a very cool enzyme i'm sorry a very cool organelle
and this thing is commonly just broken down into like the simplest way of explaining it
everybody always knows this it's the powerhouse of the cell it's the the site of atp synthesis yes that is true but
we're going to explain about how it actually does that atp synthesis but before we do that again let's kind of
highlight some of the components of this mitochondria if you look at the mitochondria of an
outer membrane so this is the outer membrane and it's important to remember that the outer membrane is a smooth
membrane and also it has a very high
permeability there's a lot of transport proteins on the outer membrane if you look here you have this little
folded membrane here on the inside that is called the inner membrane
and usually on most cells we call this inner membrane the folding chris stay we call it the chris day of the inner
membrane now this inner membrane has less
permeability it's less permeable to the transport of different types of molecules going in and out of it okay so
that's the basics inside of the mitochondria you have this structure in here called the
mitochondrial matrix and this is where a lot of the metabolic reactions are occurring and it's also
where the mitochondrial dna is found all right so we have an idea of the structure of the mitochondria the next
thing is the function so it's obviously the site of
atp synthesis but if we were to just take it just a little step further
when we make atp we make it in two primary ways one is called oxidative phosphorylation the other one is called
substrate phosphorylation the mitochondria has little proteins on its inner membrane
that are very important and then a component of what's called the electron transport chain
so atp synthesis on the mitochondria in the mitochondria occurs via the electron transport chain
and this type of atp synthesis is called oxidative phosphorylation
okay and that's carried out by this electron transport chain
the other thing that's important with the mitochondria is that there's a lot of
metabolic reactions that occur here a lot of metabolic reactions what are some of these metabolic
reactions that occur within the mitochondria well some of them
as we know the krebs cycle that's an easy one right so the krebs cycle occurs here where you have a lot of different
intermediates that are involved whenever acetyl-coa gets converted into the entire complete structure right where
you have the acetyl-coa and then the isocitrate citrate alpha-ketoglutarate all that
stuff there that's a part of this metabolic reaction the other one
is you have heme synthesis so you're making the heme component of different types of uh
chrome different types of pigment molecules that are part of the electron transport
chain as well as synthesis of heme for hemoglobin or myoglobin the other one is the urea cycle occurs
here so the urea cycle is another big one where you're taking different types of molecules like
ammonia and turning it into urea the other one is called gluconeogenesis where you're taking
things like amino acids and glycerol and odd chain fatty acids and converting it into
glucose a new glucose molecule and the last thing that can occur here is what's called
ketogenesis where you're making ketone bodies from acetyl coa
so these are some of the metabolic pathways that occur within the mitochondria one other thing to remember
is i already told you about this but in the mitochondria it has its own little dna
so we'll put this up here this is called mitochondrial dna and this actually comes from the mother
okay so this is actually going to be dna that comes from the mother and this dna can actually make tiny little proteins
that can be involved in some of these metabolic reactions on its own all right so the next structure here is going to
be our ribosomes this is the next organelle now ribosomes we have already kind of alluded to these already so
we're going to have a pretty quick run through these but obviously we know that these ribosomes let's kind of talk a
little bit about their structure there's two components of the ribosome so you have this large ribosomal subunit so
this is the large subunit and usually they always like to say this
in eukaryotic cells this is your 60s ribosomes s means vedburg unit
but again large subunit and then the other one is called your small ribosomal
subunit and in eukaryotic cells this is a 40s or 40s vedburg unit of the ribosome again
kind of a very non-essential thing to remember but again big thing to remember is that there's two units a small
subunit and a large subunit the next thing that we have to remember ribosomes are made up of what two things
we already talked about this rrna and proteins
so that's the next thing the next thing is that ribosomes can be found in two places we already know one
it could be found on the rough endoplasmic reticulum whenever ribosomes are bound to the rough
endoplasmic reticulum we call these i know it's super obvious but it's called membrane
bound ribosomes okay so membrane-bound ribosomes but if these are just kind of
in the cytosol freely circulating then they are called cytosolic ribosomes or free ribosomes
the reason why we should understand the difference between these two is that if you guys remember
the ribosomes that were on the actual rough endoplasmic reticulum what happened what do ribosomes do i guess
that's the big question to ask let's actually write that down first what do ribosomes do
they take mrna and another structure called trna and make proteins so they're basically a
site of protein synthesis right and we also give this a
particular name called translation so whenever you're taking things like
mrna and making proteins well what happens is if you have
ribosomes that are bound to the rough er what are those proteins going to become remember what we said
those will become proteins that'll be a part of lysosomes those would be proteins that'll become a part of the
membrane like integral or peripheral proteins or they'll be proteins that we're going to excrete out of the cell
cytosolic ribosomes those are just going to be making little enzymes different types of proteins inside the
cell that will not leave the cell so that is important so these are going to be making cytosolic proteins
and i know that sounds obviously kind of pretty pretty straightforward but again it's something worth mentioning these
are making cytosolic proteins like different types of enzymes that are involved in a lot of your metabolic
pathways that occur in the cytosol okay so that's important so that gives us the importance of ribosomes what they uh
what their structure is and what they do now let's finish off with the cytoskeleton all right ninja so now we
got to talk about the cytoskeleton now obviously when we talk about the cytoskeleton the cytoskeleton we're only
showing in this kind of one point here but if you really were to show the way the cytoskeleton looks it would it would
make this board look disastrous because there would just be lines and fibers all over the entire cell
and that's an important thing to remember that even though we're showing this in kind of like a static zoomed in
view of these cytoskeletal elements remember they are scattered all around the cell that's an important thing to
remember okay when we talk about the cytoskeleton
there are three different structures of the cytoskeleton the first one that i want us to talk
about is called your micro filaments your microfilaments and sometimes to be honest with you we
just refer to this as actin okay and i know you guys have heard of actin if you guys have watched our
videos before you've heard this term actin it's one of the proteins that are commonly used in
muscle contraction right so that's an important thing to remember but when you look at actin there's these
little monomers of actin and they all come together and make this long polymer of actin and you get
multiple strands of it big thing i want you to remember with this actin structure
first thing when we talk about function you know when you have a muscle cell there's another protein that actin binds
with to cause contraction and relaxation what is that protein myosin so whenever you have actin
and myosin particularly in a contractile type of cell what can this do this can lead to muscle contraction and
relaxation so this is going to be a protein that can be involved in muscle contraction
that is a very important thing to remember so one thing i want you to remember with
the microfilaments are actin is that if it's associated with myosin it can be involved in contraction
the second thing you know in a cell if we were to have like a for example there's a process
called cytokinesis when a cell is undergoing mitosis you if you imagine here let's say that
here i had to a cell that was going to become two cells so here we had one cell that's becoming
two cells right around the central portion here you form this little constriction ring
right this little constriction ring around this point here these actin filaments form that
constriction ring and eventually squeeze it to the point where guess what happens you butt off from one cell
to daughter cells so it's important for the cytokinesis part of mitosis so cytokinesis
of mitosis so it forms a little constriction ring
around that which helps to split the cells apart the other thing it's important for
you know white blood cells if you take a white blood cell let's imagine here i have a white blood
cell and i want to move a white blood cell from the blood
i mean from the blood and have it leave and go out into the tissues well here's a vessel and you know the vessels lined
with what's called endothelial cells right well what happens is that this actual
white blood cell wants to be able to squeeze through those actual capillaries what is that called
diabetes in order for it to do that it needs to be able to change the shape
of the cell what do we say cytoskeletal elements do they help to control cell shape structure all that good stuff so
what happens is the actins polymerize in such a way that it allows for this cell to kind of
create a particular shape so all the actin molecules will come at this point and create like this little shape where
the white blood cell can squeeze out of the cell so what is that called
diapedesis diapedesis of
white blood cells and let's take this one more step let's say you have a white blood cell okay
and here's a little pathogen out here here's a little pathogen and i want to take this pathogen in
in order for me to do that i need to create these little like things called pseudopods
and what happens is i create these like little arms or little extensions that come out here to
surround that pathogen the actin molecules need to come in and
help to create these little arms that'll basically wrap around the pathogen and bring it in what is that called
phagocytosis so it's also involved in phagocytosis of white blood cells babushka we did it
all right next one the next one is the intermediate
filaments the inter mediate filaments
the intermediate filaments are a very interesting type of structure and one of the things that we need to
know about these intermediate filaments is that they are primarily very tough high tensile not very much movement they
don't give they don't have a lot of give to them so why that is important is let's say
that we take here a cell here is a another cell okay we have two cells and then you know
around the cell there's a lot of protein network out here what is this called all this
protein network that sits outside of the cell this is called your extracellular matrix it's made up of collagen and
elastin and a bunch of different types of proteins we know that right well what happens is we take this
protein here let's actually draw it in another color here let's use this blue here
this protein here let's say here we have one end of it it can connect to
from the cell can connect the cell to the extracellular matrix that's one thing it
can do so it can help to hold the cell and anchor it to the extracellular matrix
the other thing here is maybe i have another protein here another protein here in these cells
these can connect cell to cell
so they help to anchor and hold the cells to each other and then let's add another thing in here
you know these little organelles remember i told you that if you imagine the cytoskeleton
they're all over this cell imagine here i draw an organelle a mitochondria
or you know the nucleus whatever here's our nucleus
right these cytoskeletal elements are also going to be bound
to these organelles so it helps to anchor the actual cell to the extracellular mantra matrix anchor
cell to cell and anchor the organelles inside of the cell so they're not just kind of like [ __ ] floating around
everywhere right so that is the function of the intermediate filaments so three functions
is an anchor if you will and it anchors what things
one is cell to cell two is cell
to the extracellular matrix and three is sell to different organelles
we done did it okay so the last component here the last part is this microtubules these are very
very cool cytoskeletal elements okay and what i really want you to remember
about microtubules okay is they're made up of two different types of protein units so i drew these
in different colors a pink protein maybe that represents what's called alpha tubulin
and pretty straightforward right and then with my blue marker here another little dot here is called beta
tubulin these things come together and form these little filaments
and then like 13 filaments come together and eventually form this entire microtubular structure
why this is important is very very interesting so microtubules one of the really big function here
is that it provides what's called intra cellular transport
okay now it's a it seems odd but on these microtubules you have these little proteins imagine here you have like a
little protein here okay and these proteins there's two different
types of them there's what's called dynein and another one which is called
kinesin and these are called motor proteins and what these motor proteins can do is
they can bind on to organelles they can bind on to different vesicles which maybe have proteins or lipids or things
that you're moving towards the cell membrane are bringing in to the cell these are transporting them throughout
the cell to different places that they need to go to that is very important so again it's
acting as the the railway right or the railroad system by which you're transporting different
substances by having to use these motor proteins big thing to take away from this
this isn't there's no free lunch on this this requires atp to drive this process this is an atp
dependent process for this intracellular motor protein transport the second thing that's important for is
cell division you know whenever a cell is going through
the mitosis phase there is this phase where you have the chromosomes
like this right and they're all lined up okay
and metaphase well at that point here the centromere there's little proteins on the side
called the kinetochore what happens is these microtubules they click in to that kinetochore
and what happens is as they start to break down they depolymerize it separates these chromosomes into the two
separate sister chromatids so again big thing microtubules connect to the kinetochore where the centromere is the
center part of the chromosome and separate them into sister chromatids so that's the other important thing is cell
division particularly separating separates
the chromatids okay the third thing here is it is important for cellular extensions
cell extensions and what i mean by these extensions is
there's two big structures they form the base of these structures
and you form what's called the cilia which is a very important structure and you form what's called flagella
these are structures that again you have motor proteins like dyneins and things like that that are
incorporated into this these uh cellular extensions but what happens is these cilia and flagella they create a
beating like motion or twisting like motion and what that helps for is that if you
have these motor proteins which are constantly utilizing atp to beat and create this movement here cilia is good
in our respiratory tract because it helps to clear out mucus it's also in the fallopian tubes you know when you
have to move the o or the oocyte or the ovum in this case if it's fertilized you have to move it towards the uterus we
need those things and microtubules make up the base of that cilia flagella in order for the sperm to be able to move
towards the oocyte or the in this case the secondary oocyte it needs to have that type of motion and again
microtubules make up the base of the flagella and utilize these dynein proteins to create that whipping motion
so now we have an idea what these microtubules do hi ninja so in this video we covered the structure and
function of the cell it was a long one but i hope it made sense and i truly hope that you guys enjoyed it and i hope
you guys learned a lot if you guys follow through this entire process of how i study prepare draw and then go
through the lecture i hope that you guys were able to come up with a similar process and i hope it helped all right
nigerians as always we thank you love you and until next time [Music]
you
Heads up!
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