Organelles Wrap Up

We started with daily questions from older material (on the introduction to cells and the cell theory)

Thursday October 18^th

The cell is the basic unit of Structure & Function in all living organisms.

The human body has about 200 different types of cells with VERY different functions.  What determines the function of a liver cell compared to a kidney cell? The structure of the cell.  Remember, all cells have similar structures found in them but they look incredibly different because they have incredibly different functions.  Below are some pictures of different eukaryotic cells.

Liver Cells

Kidney Cells

Lung Cells

 See how each of these cells have VERY different strcutres because they have VERY different functions!!




The main difference between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells is the presence or absence of what? A nucleus.  The term prokaryotic literally means "Before Nucleus" or "Before Kernel" because have no nucleus and they are much more primitive than Eukaryotic cells.  Eukaryotic literally means "True Kernel/Nucleus" because it DOES contain a nucleus.What are three features of a cell that are common to both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells?While prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells are very different, they ALL contain DNA, are enclosed in a cell membrane, are filled with cytoplasm and contain ribosomes

After this we had a brief discussion on the organelles and we answer the following two questions together as a class.

The structures found in a living cell can be compared to the parts of a factory that produces cars. Which part of the factory is most similar to the nucleus of a living cell?

(1) a conveyor belt that transports materials (Incorrect - that would describe either the endoplasmic reticulum or the golgi apparatus which transports proteins)

(2) a storage bin that holds the pieces needed to assemble a car (Incorrect - that would by the vacuoles)

(3) the computer room that controls the assembly process - Correct!!!  Since the Nucleus stores the DNA, it basically is in charge of EVERYTHING that happens in the cell!

(4) the generator that provides energy for the factory (incorrect - The generator would be the mitochondria which converts organic molecules into usable energy.)

Certain poisons are toxic to organisms because they interfere with the function of enzymes in mitochondria. This results directly in the inability of the cell to

(1)  store information (Nope - information is store in the nucleus)

(2)  build proteins (Nope - Proteins are built in the ribosomes)

(3)  release energy from nutrients (DING DING DING!!! That is correct!)

(4)  dispose of metabolic wastes (nope - that happens in the lysosomes!)

After this I passed out a worksheet that first made you match up organelles with their functions and then started to apply the function of those organelles with different disorders.  Using the examples I have done in class, i asked you to choose the correct answer AND tell me what is wrong about all the other statements!

DAILY QUESTION QUIZ TOMORROW!!!!!