Blog Post #6: How Does Your Garden Grow

Question 1:

Our plant has grown significantly since we last  checked up on it. This is Because of a number of things. It all starts with cell division also known as mitosis. This is a process that is in charge development and growth within a eukaryotic cell. There are five stages of mitosis.  prophase, interphase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase. There is also  cytokinesis when the cell actually splits.  In prophase Chromosomes become visible, the nucleolus disappears, the mitotic spindle forms, and the nuclear envelope disappears. Chromosomes become more coiled and can be viewed under a microscope! In interphase cellular organelles double in number, the DNA replicates, and protein synthesis occurs. The chromosomes are not visible and the DNA appears as uncoiled chromatin. In metaphase the microtubules of the spindle have attached and the chromosomes have lined up on the metaphase plate. In anaphase each sister chromatid of a chromosome has spindle fibers attached to it. These spindle fibers begin to shorten and pull the sister chromatids apart at the centromere. The chromosomes during anaphase usually have a V shape.

Next is photosynthesis a process that provides our plant with food. The plant does this when photons from sunlight shines through the leaf of the plant it creates  chlorophyll and activates electrons. Water is split into oxygen and hydrogen ions. The activated electrons then go through an electron transport chain. Then an accumulation of hydrogen ions goes to the thylakoid membrane generating a proton gradient. ATP is formed when ADP and P come together. The electrons going through the electron transport chain combine with NADP+  to form NADPH. NADPH is an energy-rich molecule. Next if there is a dark reaction this reaction uses the energy from the light reaction to convert carbon dioxide into glucose this is known as the Calvin cycle.

Finally we have cellular respiration. Cellular respiration  is the process of oxidizing food molecules, like glucose, to carbon dioxide and water. The energy released is trapped in the form of ATP for use by all the energy-consuming activities of the cell. The process occurs in two parts: glycolysis, the breakdown of glucose to pyruvic acid.

Question 2:

The cell begins protein synthesis when certain enzymes are needed. A signal will be sent to the nucleus, the cell will begin to produce more proteins to make enzymes.  RNA Polymerase’s job is to unzip the the double helix of DNA that codes for the needed protein, 
it then makes a complementary strand to one of the DNA strands, then re-zips the double helix.  The mRNA will travel outside the nucleus, where a ribosomes will attach jthemselves. The ribosomes read the codons of mRNA, and tRNA and bring the matching amino acid for each of the triplet codons. These two processes are called transcription and translation.  At the end of translation, all the amino acids specified by the mRNA codons will have formed a protein.