Blog Post #6 - Hope

All of the plants in the garden are growing really well. Our broccoli plant has gotten way bigger than it was before and this is thanks to cellular respiration, photosynthesis and cell division. During cellular respiration a glucose molecule is being broken into CO2 and water. All the reactions that occur during this process help make ATP. This molecule has bonds that break and release energy for the cell. Photosynthesis uses the energy from ATP, as well as making more, to convert sunlight into glucose for food. The whole concept of growing means getting bigger, though, and cell division is how this happens. Obviously, the plant needs energy from the processes mentioned before to make this happen, but cell division actively makes it bigger. During cell division, a cell goes through 7 phases: interphase, prophase, prometaphase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase, and cytokinesis. In short, the cell duplicates everything in it, pulls apart the chromosomes, gets everything on two sides, and splits by pinching apart in the middle. This makes a new cell and the process starts over. Each time this process happens, a new cell is made and many put together, all multiplying creates tissue growth. Cells are constantly going through this cycle.

In photosynthesis, enzymes are extremely important. Phosphoglycerate kinase (PKG) and ribulose 1, 5 bisphosphate carboxylase/ oxygenase (Rubisco) are two examples. If the cells needed more PKG and Rubisco here's what they'd need to do. First, the DNA needed for each of these enzymes would be transcribed to RNA so that it can leave the nucleus and go to the cytoplasm. The original DNA can't leave because it may be damaged. This is more convenient anyways because the proteins need to be outside the nucleus. Most things being made by this process are too big to be in the nucleus anyways. Once outside the nucleus, the RNA is read by the ribosome in groups of three bases called codons. Different codon sequences code for different amino acids. Amino acids are the primary part of proteins. It takes a lot of amino acids chained together to make a protein. Since enzymes are proteins this is the last step of making these enzymes. If anything goes wrong it's called a mutation. Some mutations cause catastrophic diseases so it's a good thing the system is so precise.

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