Chapter 6 - A Tour of the Cell Flashcards
larger organisms like plants and animals are…
multicellular
when were microscopes invented?
1590 (and were further refined during 1600s)
who was the first to see cell walls, when, and where?
Robert Hooke in 1665 - through a microscope while examining dead cells from the bark of an oak tree
who was the first to visualize living cells?
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek roughly 1674
what are light microscopes and how do they work?
light is passed through a specimen and through glass lenses -> lenses refract/bend the light in such a way that the specimen image is magnified as it’s projected into the eye or into a camera
what are three important parameters in microscopy?
magnification
resolution
contrast
what is magnification?
the ratio of an object’s image size to its real size
how much can light microscopes magnify?
about 1,000x the actual size of a specimen
what is resolution?
a measure of the clarity of the image; the minimum distance two points can be separated and still be distinguished as separate points
a light microscope cannot resolve detail finer than…
0.2 micrometers, or 200 nanometers - regardless of the magnification
a Paramecium is considered a…
single-celled organism
define organelles
membrane-enclosed structures within eukaryotic cells
when was the electron microscope introduced?
1950s
how does an electron microscope work?
a beam of electrons passes through a specimen or onto its surface
resolution is inversely related to the wavelength of the light a microscope uses for imaging
what resolution can electron microscopes achieve?
0.002 nm; cannot resolve structures smaller than 2 nm across
this is still a 100-fold improvement over the standard light microscope
the cytoskeleton functions in…
structural support for the cell and in motility and signal transmission
microtubules do what
shape the cell, guide organelle movement, and separate chromosomes in dividing cells
cilia and flagella are
motile appendages containing microtubules; primary cilia also play sensory and signaling roles
why isn’t the mitochondrion classified as part of the endomembrane system?
its structure is not derived from the ER or Golgi
when biologists wish to study the internal ultrastructure of cells, they can achieve the finest resolution by using
a transmission electronic microscope
the nuclear lamina is an array of filaments on the inner side of the nuclear membrane; if a method were found that could cause the lamina to fall into disarray, what would you expect to be the most likely consequence?
a change in the shape of the nucleus
movement of vesicles within the cell depends on what cellular structures?
microtubules and motor proteins
the smallest cell structure that would most likely be visible with a standard (not super-resolution) research-grade light microscope is
a mitochondrion
in a plant cell, DNA may be found
in the nucleus, mitochondria, and chloroplasts