Learn Before Lecture (LBL) 1 Worksheet:

Nucleus and Ribosomes (~20 min)

Type your answers in the boxes provided. Upload your assignment as a word or pdf to your EEE Dropbox
before 9 am on Mon. Take the Lecture 4 online quiz (this material will be on the quiz!). Bring a copy of
assignment with you to class.

The nucleus is a membrane bound structure that contains the genetic library in all eukaryotic cells. Read pages
102-103, examine Figure 6.9 and answer the following questions.

1. What is chromatin?

2. What specific process takes place in the
nucleolus, a specialized region within the nucleus?


3. What structure allows proteins and other large
macromolecules to move into and out of the nucleus?





Ribosomes are the organelles involved in the synthesis of all proteins. Ribosomes are made of two subunits, one
large and one small (see fig. 6.10). These are found separately in the cytoplasm and they only combine when
mRNA binds to the small subunit. After mRNA binds, the large subunit binds and protein synthesis begins. Read
the short section on ribosomes, pg 102-103, to find out where ribosomes go to finish protein synthesis, and
answer the following questions.

4. Synthesis of all proteins begins first on free ribosomes
(True or False).

5. If synthesis of a protein is completed by a free ribosome,
where in the cell will the protein function?

6. If a protein is going to be secreted where will protein
synthesis be completed?


7. To understand how secreted proteins are synthesized look
carefully at Figure 17.22 in your text. In your own words, write 6
statements that describe each step shown in the process of a
ribosome that is making a secreted protein.


The complex of DNA and proteins making up chromosomes.
In the nucleolus a type of RNA called ribosomal RNA is
synthesized from instructions in the DNA. Also, proteins
imported from the cytoplasm are assembled with rRNA
into large and small subunits of ribosomes.
An intricate protein structure called a pore complex lines each pore of the nuclear
envelope and plays an important part in the cell by regulating the entry and exit of
proteins and RNAs, as well as large complexes of macromolecules.
False
Most of the proteins function within the
cytosol.
It will be completed by a bound protein.
1. To begin, polypeptide synthesis begins in the cytosol as the free ribosome receives an mRNA molecule and
begins to translate it.

2. The polypeptides are all marked by a signal peptide with allows to be carried to the ER membrane by a
signal-recognition particle.

3. The signal-recognition particle then binds to a receptor protein on the ER membrane.

4. After carrying it to the receptor the signal-recognition particle leaves and the polypeptide is allowed to go
through the receptor pore, where it will make its way to the ER lumen.

5. The signal peptide that bonded with the signal-recognition particle is now cut off.

6. The peptide is allowed to go into the ER lumen, where it will become a protein.