Cell

(from Latin cella, meaning "small room)

➢ It is the smallest unit of a living thing, All living things are made of
cells.
➢ A living thing, whether made of one cell (like bacteria) or
many cells (like an insect ), is called an organism.

➢ Thus, cells are the basic building blocks of all organisms.

➢ Cells provide structure for the body, take in nutrients from food, convert those
nutrients into energy, and carry out specialized functions. Cells contain the
body's hereditary material and can make copies of themselves.

Ent-708 (Insect Molecular Biology), Dr. Zain, Associate Prof. Deptt. Entomology, UAF. E.mail.
zainunibas@gmail.com
Eukaryotes have a distinct nucleus containing many chromosomes, while prokaryotes
have a single chromosome contained in an area called a nucleoid.
 The average size of a human cell is about 100 μm in diameter. The smallest of which is the red
blood cell, and it also has not nucleus

Insect cells Media Cell size (microns)

High Five™ cells Express Five™ SFM 17.5 to 19.5

Sf9 cells Sf-900™ II SFM 15 to 17.5

Sf21 cells Sf-900™ II SFM 15 to 17.5

 Sf9 cells, a clonal isolate of Spodoptera frugiperda
Sf21 cells (IPLB-Sf21-AE), are commonly used in insect
cell culture for recombinant protein production using
baculovirus. They were originally established from ovarian
tissue.

Sf9 Insect Cells

Sf21 -
(IPLB-Sf21-AE) is a continuous cell line developed from
ovaries of the Fall Army worm, Spodoptera frugiperda,
a moth species that is an agricultural pest on corn and other
grass species.
Sf9 is a substrain (clone) of these cells that was isolated from
Sf21 by researchers at Texas A&M University.
Both the clone and parent strains of the cells have been
extensively used in research on viruses,
especially baculoviruses in their use for producing
recombinant proteins.
Sf21 -
 Structure of the Nucleus

Ent-708 (Insect Molecular Biology), Dr. Zain, Associate Prof. Deptt. Entomology, UAF. E.mail.
zainunibas@gmail.com
Structure of Nucleus

➢ Nucleus is a membrane bounded structure that contains the cell’s

hereditary information and controls the cell’s growth and reproduction.
The nuclear envelope is a double membrane that separates the nucleus
from the cytoplasm.

➢ Nucleus is present in all eukaryotic cells, they may be absent in few

cells like the mammalian RBCs.

➢ It is the command center of a eukaryotic cell and is commonly the most

prominent organelle in a cell.

➢ The nuclear envelope consists of phospholipids that form a lipid bilayer.

Functions of Nucleus
➢ It controls the heredity characteristics of an organism.

➢ It maintain cellular metabolism through controlling synthesis of particular enzymes.

➢ It is responsible for protein synthesis, cell division, growth and differentiation.

➢ Stores heredity material in the form of deoxy-ribonucleic acid (DNA) strands. Also stores
proteins and ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the nucleolus.

➢ It is a site for transcription process in which messenger RNA (mRNA) are produced for
protein synthesis and helps in exchange of DNA and RNA (heredity materials) between the
nucleus and the rest of the cell

➢ Nucleolus produces ribosomes and are known as protein factories.

➢ It also regulates the integrity of genes and gene expression.

Chromosomes
These are thread-like structures located inside the nucleus of animal and plant cells. Each chromosome is made of
protein and a single molecule of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Passed from parents to offspring, DNA contains the specific
instructions that make each type of living creature unique. A chromosome is a long DNA molecule with part or all of the
genetic material of an organism. Most eukaryotic chromosomes include packaging proteins called histones which, aided
by chaperone proteins, bind to and condense the DNA molecule to maintain its integrity.
Hundreds and thousands of genes can be found on
one chromosome.
There are many chromosomes found in the nucleus, a protective compartment, of every
cell. The chromosomes are structures that help organize the DNA. The DNA is the
language or code that provides the instructions that tell the body how to grow, function and
respond to the environment. The genes are specific segments of DNA which have a
specific job to do.
WHAT ARE GENES
➢ Genes carry the information that determines your traits, and how your body grows
and develops.

➢ Genes are made up of DNA, which has its own alphabet made of just 4 letters
A, T, C, and G.
➢ These stand for the 4 chemical building blocks –
a. adenine (A),
b. thymine (T),
c. cytosine (C)
d. guanine (G).

These four letters are put together into different combinations in a specific order to make up each
of your genes. The gene’s job is to create a specific protein. Just like with words, if a letter is
deleted, added, or located in the wrong place, the message to create the protein may not make
sense and the message may not be understood by the cell. This is what can happen when a
mutation in a gene occurs – the protein product may be inefficient, faulty, or absent.
Note: Not all mutations or DNA changes are harmful.
Central dogma of molecular biology:

➢ The ‘Central Dogma’ is the process by which the instructions in DNA are
converted into a functional product. It was first proposed in 1958 by Francis
Crick, discoverer of the structure of DNA.

➢ Flow of genetic information, from DNA to RNA, to make a functional

product, a protein.

➢ DNA contains the information needed to make all of our proteins, and that RNA is
a messenger that carries this information to the ribosomes. The ribosomes serve
as factories in the cell where the information is ‘translated’ from a code into the
functional product. The process by which the DNA instructions are converted into
the functional product is called gene expression.
➢ Gene expression has two key stages - transcription and translation
Ent-708 (Insect Molecular Biology), Dr. Zain, Associate Prof. Deptt. Entomology, UAF. E.mail. zainunibas@gmail.com