Questions tagged [cell-biology]
The study of cells and their physiological properties, structure, environmental interaction, division, life cycle, and death, as well as the organelles they contain. Also known as cytology.
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Why is the nitrate concentration in a root hair cell higher than the nitrate concentration in soil?
For the exchange of nitrates and other mineral ions to occur between the root hair cell and the soil, the root hair cell needs a higher concentration of mineral ions and nitrates than the soil so that ...
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Cell culture contamination
I've been culturing my cells over 2 weeks and just yesterday these things popped up in my flask , I'm not sure if they're contamination or not.uesterday they looked white and today I found one of them ...
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What is meant by the steady-state activation of a receptor?
I am reading a journal paper about the insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor. In this paper, there is the following statement:
Finally, we show that the IGF-IR and the PI3K subunit p85 and Akt are
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What's the new cell organelle discovered in recently in animal cells?
It is being heard that recently a new cell organelle has been discovered by cell biologists. Researchers have studied cells of fruit flies and discovered a new orgaelle that acts as a phosphate ...
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Do we know how the different functions are selected when Wnt pathway is activated?
The Wnt signaling pathway is said to allows multiple functions:
Axis patterning
Cell differentiation
Cell proliferation
Cell fate specification
Cell migration
But how are these functions "...
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What cells are secreting Wnt pathways and under which conditions?
Former question: Where and how happen these operations in the Wnt signaling pathway?
I have read about the signaling pathway on wikipedia:
Wnt comprises a diverse family of secreted lipid-modified ...
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Aerobic respiration takes place in the mitochondria; anaerobic respiration takes place in the cytoplasm. Is there a biochemical reason for this?
According to hyperphysics.edu, and my general knowledge, anaerobic respiration occurs in the cytoplasm. ("Anaerobic respiration (both glycolysis and fermentation) takes place in the fluid portion ...
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Relationship between general pictorial representations of cells and reality
As a novice biology student, I have seen a lot of pictorial representations of cells, from a generalised basic eukaryotic cell to specialized forms.
But is it right to visualize a cell as a 3D sphere? ...
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What are the key mechanisms of control and transport of ATP from mitochondria to synapse in active firing neurons?
I am working with a group in the field of neuronal activity (in computational neuroscience), in specific the firing rates at different ensemble/population hierarchies.
It is well established that ...
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Analysing a microscope image
After a session of practical work in cellular biology, I stumbled across this image of human cheek cells. As seen on the sample below several particles envelop one of the cells. What are they?
The ...
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Is colocalisation of a protein with a presynaptic marker sufficient evidence to say that the protein is a component of axon terminals?
I am reading journal papers about the subcellular localisation of the insulin receptor (IR) in neurons.
I have read a paper stating that IR is highly enriched at synapses, localising to both the ...
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Why doesn't the cell just use one messenger?
I recently learned the second messenger model, where adrenaline activates adenyl cyclase, which converts ATP into cAMP. Then cAMP acts as a second messenger which activates portein kinase enzymes. The ...
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When shall we call a secondary Oocyte an Ovum?
My common sense tells me that once ovulation has occurred and the secondary Oocyte is out of the Ovary ,it should be called an Ovum, but my son's high school biology text book mentions a secondary ...
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Lipid Bilayer composition
I am currently taking a course on introduction to biomolecules and the other day our professor showed us a photo describing the composition of lipid bilayers of various organelles in a eukaryotic cell....
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Can citrate in semen be utilized as a source of energy by the sperm?
Prostatic secretions of semen include citrate as one of the component.
The role of citrate in motility has been suggested by some researches.
(Kavanagh JP. Isocitric and citric acid in human prostatic ...
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Confused about the transport of materials across cell membranes
I am very confused about how exactly substances are transported across cells. For example, if a cell is placed in a hypertonic solution, the cell loses water. If the cell is placed in a hypotonic ...
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Immunoprecipitation efficiency
Immunoprecipitation efficiency
Hi, I need to calculate efficiency of IP.
For that, I had 300microliter lysates containing eGFP (300microliter). I used 2 microliter to carry out BCA assay and find ...
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What is the purposes of these sugars?
What is the function of $\alpha$-D-glucofuranose and $\beta$-D-glucofuranose?
Are they both converted into energy? Or are they just different variations with no particular difference in function?
I ...
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How does ATP work? [duplicate]
I have heard many times that ATP is the basic unit of energy used by cells. People explain this by saying that energy is released when the ATP molecule breaks from its 3rd phosphate group. But what ...
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Need help identifying this microbe
Sorry for the bad image, we don't have a camera hooked up to our culture room microscope yet. But Has anyone seen these kind of (what I'm assuming are) contaminating bacteria before? We see these from ...
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CRISPR-Cas9 system, DNA repair
As a critical stage in the CRISPR-Cas9 system, two different mechanisms of DNA repair can occur in the target DNA after RNA has been introduced: non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) and homologous ...
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Can We Determine the Cell Types Ab initio?
Is it possible to find all cell types in the human body and their respective transcriptomes by analyzing the human genome (and doing no physical experiment)?
If such a thing is possible in principle, ...
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What is the difference between a semi-permeable membrane and a selectively permeable membrane?
What is the difference between a semi-permeable membrane and a selectively permeable membrane in cell biology? Is a selectively permeable membrane a type of semi-permeable membrane? Please help.
I ...
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D-Galactose effects on primates?
A lot of studies are made using D-Galactose as a accelerated aging model in rats and mice, but why not in non human primates? How much relevant is the galactose rat model for human health perpective? (...
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What lysis buffer recipe is good for just breaking the cell membrane?
I am interested in the decellularization of plant leaves(more specifically maple) and thus need a lysis buffer. I want the buffer to only break the cell wall and cell membrane and I want to observe ...
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Does decellularization with sodium lauryl sulfate break down enzymes?
I am currently looking into decellularization with sodium lauryl sulfate since it is effective and cheap. My goal is to break down the cells of a plant leaf and release the chloroplasts to be viewed ...
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The springlike behavior of titin problem
I am currently reading a textbook (Molecular Biology of the Cell, 6th ed), and this problem on p. 170 is driving me crazy. I read through the solution given in this book but I couldn’t understand it ...
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What are these ciliates doing here during cell division?
A while ago I filmed a short (20 min) time-lapse of the cell division of two ciliates. However, I noticed something odd with their behavior. They appear to push against a piece of debris in order to ...
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Which programming language is beneficial for a cell biologist who does extensive confocal microscopy and image analysis? Python or MATLAB?
I'm currently learning to acquire images using confocal microscopy and subsequently analyze the images using the Fiji software. I want to know how and where exactly Python or MATLAB is used by ...
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Receptor tyrosine kinases: What does "tonic activation", "tonic inhibition" and "tonic brake" mean?
I am reading a journal paper about the insulin receptor (IR). The insulin receptor is a receptor tyrosine kinase, and upon ligand binding, undergoes autophosphorylation of intracellular tyrosine ...
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Can an amoeba go through states that would be analogous to pain?
Amoeba can move freely. Would I be correct in assuming that this movement is not completely random? Would it be correct to assume that an amoeba can seek out food and can attempt to avoid danger?
If ...
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Estimates for the volume and mass of most ancestral multicellular organism, and a similar question for alive animals with radial symmetry
please I'm interested in an estimate for the volume and weight, the mass, of (most) ancestral multicellular organisms. Wikipedia has the article Multicellular organism, and my main interest are ...
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What happened to dead cells which still keep DNA information?
I heard that the destination of dying cells is either one of them: Apoptosis and Necrosis. Further I heard that apoptosis causes destroy of cell components and necrosis is caused by autolyses.
But we ...
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Can Iron(III) accept electrons from NADH without the other enzymes?
During the electron transfer chain in cellular respiration, the NADH turns into NAD+ while donating an electron. Those electrons pass through many enzymes and chemical reactions. One such chemical ...
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Could metastasis be driven by a healthy organ?
Could the cancer cell be called to itself by the organ to which it will metastasize? Maybe when the cancer cell enters the bloodstream, it is not according to the seed-soil hypothesis, but by ...
user74169
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CRISPR/Cas9: How can inserted DNA be used as a donor for the homology-directed repair if Cas9 only creates blunt ends?
The CRISPR/Cas9 method allows new genes to be inserted. After Cas9 cuts the Target-DNA, it can use a homologous piece of DNA as a donor template for homology-directed repair. But HDR only occurs when ...
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Boundary of a cell and its membrane - position definition and jargon problem
Can extracellular be extramembrane/intramembrane?
Definition of Extracellular here:
Extracellular matrix: The extracellular matrix is a complex network of material such as proteins and ...
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Can the genetic sequences for CRISPR components be inserted into the host genome so that the cell perpetually produces CRISPR components?
Theoretically speaking, can you insert the gene sequences for cas9, sgRNA, and promoters into the host genome so that the cell perpetually produces CRISPR components?
In this scenario, I'm guessing ...
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How are cells different depending on the ethnic origin?
I recently came across an article about the fact that cell-lines provided by merchant entities to give cells to researchers, were tagged by ethnic origin. The article especially speaks about ethnic ...
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Molecular biology - Lewin's Gene Xi vs Molecular Biology of the Cell by bruce albert [closed]
I am an undergraduate and want to start reading about molecular biology. to anyone who has read both books please let me know your thoughts. which one should I go with?
Lewin's Gene Xi or Molecular ...
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Interphase is the process in which DNA is duplicated/replicated and is the longest phase [closed]
A test question that I completed as True just wanted to know if I'm right or not:
The Question goes as follows:
Please write True or False for the following question; if False, correct the Bolded ...
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Is the net gain of ATP during glycolysis 2 or 8?
As I understand, 2 ATP are consumed during steps 1 and 3 (glucose -> glucose-6-phosphate and fructose-6-phosphate -> fructose-1,6-bisphosphate) and then 4 ATP are produced during steps 6 and 9 (...
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Why don't RNA and MRNA need intracellular vesicles? [duplicate]
mRNA and RNA are hydrophilic (polar) molecules and therefore soluble in water. The cell's cytoplasm is usually full of water.
How does mRNA move to a ribosome in transcription, and RNA move elsewhere ...
user73894
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What safe, accessible enveloped virus should we use for beginning experiments?
I need to know which virus meets the following criteria:
It has to be enveloped.
It has to have a DNA packaging scheme similar to Adenovirus (basically, sticks most of itself together then draws in ...
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NMDA receptor depolarization
I learnt that two factors for NMDA receptor channels opening are:
1)Binding of glutamate
2)Depolarization of postsynaptic cell (to remove the Mg+2 block)
Given that depolarization starts in axon ...
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Can stand-alone DNA (no nucleus, no membranes, organelles...etc.) create cells? [closed]
I have been searching for an answer to the following question as part of my research but can't find a direct/complete answer yet.
Can stand-alone DNA (no nucleus, no membranes, organelles...etc.) ...
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Why do cells keep synthesizing and degrading transcription factors in certain signaling pathways? [duplicate]
In some signaling pathways (e.g. Wnt/β-catenin pathway, ethylene signaling pathway), transcription factors are continuously being synthesized and degraded. In these cases, transcription factors are ...
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What genetic biomarkers are the best place to obtain histopathological images for the purpose of cancer classification?
I am doing a science-fair project and wanted to know where I could obtain the best possible histopathological images of both non-cancerous and cancerous subjects. I would require roughly more than ~...
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Calvin cycle question [duplicate]
Why does the 6-carbon molecule produced when Rubisco attaches a Co2 onto RUBP split into 2, 3 carbon molecules? Is it because its unstable or is there another reason?
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Receptor tyrosine kinases: What is meant by basal phosphorylation of the receptor?
I am reading a journal paper about the insulin receptor. The insulin receptor is a receptor tyrosine kinase, and upon ligand binding, undergoes autophosphorylation of intracellular tyrosine residues.
...
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