Unit 1 - Human Cells Flashcards
How many pairs of chromosomes do human diploid cells contain?
23
What are stem cells used for?
Growth and Repair
Where are stem cells found?
Embryos
Adult Tissue
What are therapeutic uses of stem cells?
Skin Grafts
Cornea Repairs
Repair of damaged/diseased organs
What are somatic cells?
Body cells
How do somatic cells divide?
Mitosis
What are germline cells?
Sex cells (gametes)
How do germline cells divide?
Mitosis
Meiosis
Give examples of germline cells?
Sperm
Ova
What is cellular differentiation?
The process by which a cell expresses certain genes to produce proteins characteristic for that type of cell
Why is cell differentiation important?
Allows cells to carry out specialised functions
What does pluripotent mean and where can these cells be found?
- Pluripotent means that all the genes in a cell have the ability to be activated
- Found in embryonic cells
What does multipotent means and where are these cells found?
- Can only differentiate into certain cells based upon where the cells are formed from
- Found in adult tissue - skin and bone marrow
Give the research based use of stem cells
Investigate how certain diseases/disorders develop and the response of cells to new pharmaceutical drugs
How do cancer cells form?
Don’t respond to regulatory signals, causing them to excessively divide forming abnormal masses
How do cancer cells spread to secondary locations?
Masses breach into systems such as the blood vessels and if the cells fail to attach to each other they can travel to secondary locations and start a secondary tumour there
What does benign mean?
localised abnormal cells (often not harmful)
What does Malignant mean?
Ability to spread (harmful)
What is DNA made of?
Repeating nucleotide bases joined by strong hydrogen bonds with a double helix structure
What are the four bases in DNA and how do they pair?
Adenine + Thymine
Cytosine + Guanine
How do the strands of nucleotides run?
Antiparallel (like traffic)
How should DNA be read?
From 5’ end to 3’ end
What are the requirements for DNA replication to take place?
- DNA
- Primers
- Free DNA nucleotides
- Enzymes (DNA polymerase and ligase)
- ATP energy
What are the main stages of DNA replication?
Breaking
Attaching
Adding
Joining
What happens during the breaking stage of DNA replication?
DNA unwinds and the hydrogen bonds between the bases break, forming a replication fork
What breaks the hydrogen bonds between bases in DNA?
Helicase
What happens during the attaching stage of DNA replication?
Primers attach themselves to the target sequence at the 3’ end
What happens during the addition stage of DNA replication?
DNA polymerase adds free nucleotides to the template strands of DNA from the 3’ end to the 5’ end
Why is there a leading strand and a lagging strand of DNA during DNA replication?
Leading strand (running 3' to 5') can have nucleotides added continuously Lagging strand (running 5' to 3') has to be added in fragments as the strand is running the opposite way to how it is read
What happens during the joining stage of DNA replication?
Hydrogen bonds form between the template bases and the added bases, joining the two strands
What does ligase do in DNA replication?
Joins the fragments on the lagging strand to make it complete
Why would DNA be artificially amplified in a lab?
- Paternity testing
- Screening/Diagnosis of Genetic Disorders
- Forensics/Criminology
How is DNA artificially amplified?
Through a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
What are the five stages of PCR?
- DNA is heated to 90 degrees to separate the strands
- DNA is cooled to 50-60 degrees to allow primers to bind to DNA
- DNA is heated to 70-80 degrees for heat tolerant DNA polymerase to replicate the region of DNA
- Two strands are produced
- Process restarts
Why is DNA replication referred to as semi conservative?
One template makes two strands
What does helicase do in DNA replication?
Unzips the strands of DNA by breaking the hydrogen bonds between bases
What does primase do in DNA replication?
Makes primer made of RNA. Tells DNA polymerase where to start adding nucleotides
What does DNA polymerase do during DNA replication?
Build new strands of DNA with free nucleotide bases
Goes in 5’ to 3’ direction
What are the stages of Protein Synthesis?
Transcription and Translation
Where does transcription take place?
Nucleus
What is DNA short for?
Deoxyribose nucleic acid
What happens during transcription?
RNA polymerase unwinds double helix structure
mRNA makes a complementary copy of the DNA sequence on the strand
Splicing occurs
What does mRNA have instead of Thymine?
Uracil
How does splicing work?
Introns (none coding bits of genes) are removed from the primary transcript and the mature transcript is left as exons (coding regions of genes)
How does mRNA know where to find the required genes?
Start and stop codons
Where does translation occur?
In the ribosome
What occurs during translation?
Mature mRNA travels to a ribosome in the cytoplasm
tRNA (transport) reads the mature mRNA and adds amino acids to a chain
The amino acids fold to make a protein
What is a ribosome made from?
Ribosomal Ribose Nucleic Acid
How does tRNA read the mRNA?
In triplets - codons
What holds amino acids together?
Peptide bonds
What are the types of proteins?
Enzymes Antibodies Hormones Structural Receptors
What is a mutation?
A random change to genetic material
What can mutations cause in terms of proteins?
Can result in an altered protein or no protein synthesised at all
What are the two classifications of mutations?
Single gene mutations
Chromosomal mutations
What classification of mutation is more dangerous and why?
Chromosomal - alters an entire gene rather than just one nucleotide
What increases the rate of mutation?
Radiation
High temperatures
Chemicals