A Preview of Cell Biology

Question 1

What is resolving power or resolution?

Answer 1

ability to see fine detail

Question 2

What is the cell theory?

Answer 2

• all organisms consist of one or more cells
• the cell is the basic unit of structure for all organisms
• all cells arise from preexisting cells

Question 3

What is cytology?

Answer 3

focuses mainly on cellular structure and emphasizes optical techniques

Question 4

What is biochemistry?

Answer 4

focuses on cellular structure and function

Question 5

What is Genetics?

Answer 5

focuses on information flow and heredity and includes sequencing of the entire genome in numerous organisms

Question 6

what are the units for cell biology?

Answer 6

• micrometer - 10^-6
• nanometer - 10^-9
• angstron - 0.1nm

Question 7

What is a light microscope?

Answer 7

also called brightfieqld microscopy b/c white light is passed directly through a specimen

Question 8

What is the limit of resolution?

Answer 8

how far apart objects must be to appear as distinct

Question 9

What is an antibody?

Answer 9

a protein that binds to a particular target molecule (antigen)

Question 10

What is green fluorescent protein used to study?

Answer 10

the temporal and spatial distribution of proteins in a living cell

Question 11

What is digital video microscopy?

Answer 11

uses video cameras to collect digital images

Question 12

What does the electron microscope do?

Answer 12

uses a beam of electrons rather than light
the limit resolution is about 100 times better than light microscopes
the magnification is much higher than light microscopes - up to 100,000x

Question 13

What happens in transmission electron microscopy?

Answer 13

electrons are transmitted through a specimen

Question 14

What happens in scanning electron microscopy?

Answer 14

the surface of a specimen is scanned by detecting electrons deflected from the outer surface

Question 15

What is sub cellular fractionation?

Answer 15

uses centrifugation to separate/isolate different structures and macromolecules

Question 16

What is chromatography?

Answer 16

technique used to separate molecules from a solution based on size, charge or chemical affinity

Question 17

what is electrophoresis?

Answer 17

uses an electric field to move proteins, DNA, or RNA molecules through a medium based on size/charge

Question 18

What is mass spectrometry?

Answer 18

used to determine the size and composition of individual proteins

Question 19

what is reverse transcriptase?

Answer 19

an enzyme that uses viral RNA to synthesize complementary DNA

Question 20

What is recombinant DNA technology?

Answer 20

uses restriction enzymes to cut DNA at specific places, allowing scientists to create recombinant DNA molecules with DNA from different sources

Question 21

What is DNA transformation?

Answer 21

prices of introducing DNA into cells

Question 22

What is bioinformatics?

Answer 22

merges computer science with biology to organize and interpret enormous amounts of sequencing and other data

Question 23

What is genomics?

Answer 23

study of all genes of an organisms

Question 24

What is proteomics?

Answer 24

the study of the functions and interactions of all proteins present in a particular call

Question 25

What is transcriptomics?

Answer 25

the study of all genes transcribed in a cell

Question 26

What is metabolomics?

Answer 26

the analysis of all metabolic reactions happening at a given time in a cell

Question 27

What is lipidomics?

Answer 27

study of all the lipids in a cell

Question 28

What is bionomics?

Answer 28

study of all ions in a cell

Question 29

What is a model organism?

Answer 29

a species widely studied, well characterized, easy to manipulate