Abbie Weimer Blog Post #6

Our plant is growing rapidly! At first it started as a seed, and now it is a large broccoli plant with many leaves and flowers. The rapid addition of biomass is due to three main processes: mitosis, photosynthesis, and cellular respiration.

Mitosis, or cell division, occurs constantly in plants. During this process, a single cell is split into two identical cells. This process occurs and over, at an exponential rate. This is why our plant looks so much bigger. But the cells could not be going through mitosis if it weren't for photosynthesis and cellular respiration. These two processes provide energy (ATP and NADPH) and food (glucose) for the plant's cells, so they are able to undergo processes like mitosis. Without this, our plant would not be alive.

 In photosynthesis, many different enzymes are used. Two important enzymes are phosphoglycerate kinase (PKG) and ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco). Enzymes are proteins that act as catalysts to speed up reactions. When these enzymes are needed, a signal is sent to the nucleus. Once this happens, many processes occur. To start, a DNA strand is unzipped by an enzyme called DNA Polymerase. Once this happens, new RNA bases are added to the corresponding DNA bases. This creates a strand of mRNA. This mRNA is then sent outside the nucleus into the cytoplasm/mitochondria, where the strand is translated into amino acids. This process, called translation, starts when a ribosome reads the codon "AUG". It reads each codon and creates an amino acid according to the codon. The ribosome stops reading the strand when a stop codon is reached. This could be "UAA", "UAG", or "UGA".  This sequence of amino acids makes up a protein. In this case, the protein would either be PKG or Rubisco. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This is the link to the google doc where the lab report is: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V8s5TV6BSQBXdekNkHmE1GPl1sSeXvQTMKXTjjpVKHY/edit
Read more

Abbie Weimer- Blog Post #3: Biogeochemical Cycles and our Plant

Our plant hasn’t grown much this week, but it seems to be liking its new environment. The leaves are looking a nice shade of green, and the broccoli plant doesn’t seem to be withering at all. It is about 4.5 inches now, and its roots are beginning to grow deeper into the soil we planted it in. Overall, our plant is thriving. Our broccoli plant participates in the movement of water in the biosphere every day. It absorbs water through its roots in the soil, and that water is used to make sugar, which is the plants food. The excess water is then released into the atmosphere as water vapor, through a process called transpiration. Our plant is growing rapidly because of this. All plants are a part of the carbon cycle. Our broccoli plant and the rest of the plants in the world take in carbon through their leaves and use it to make food. This process releases a byproduct of oxygen into the atmosphere, allowing other organisms to breathe. In addition, when the plant dies or is consu...
Read more

Abbie Weimer Blog Post #7

Image
Angiosperms are plants that have flowers and produce seeds. Angiosperms are found everywhere, and our Brassica Oleracea is an example of one! This species is just one of 300,000 species that falls under this category. Angiosperms are unique because of the way they reproduce. There are both male and female parts, the male part is called the stamen, and the female part is called the carpel/pistil. The stamen is made up of the anthers (the part that creates pollen) and the filament (the part that holds up the anther). The carpel/pistil is made up of the stigma, style, and ovary. The stigma is the sticky part on top if the long tube called the style, which leads to the ovary. The ovary is where the ovules or female egg cells are held. Other important parts of flowers are petals, even though they are not sexual. Petals help attract pollinators, such as bees, birds, and butterflies, so pollen can be spread from plant to plant. This aids the process of fertilization. In fact, without pollinat...
Read more