CHEM 301 BIOCHEMISTRY LECTURE BSMLS 2D | SOPHOMORE YEAR

WEEK 2: LESSON 2 o Like plants that generate their own

THE CELLS: PROKARYOTES AND EUKORYOTES
Professor/Lecturer: Michael Dann Superio, MSc
VIDEO LECTURE
TOPIC OUTLINE
The Beginning of Life
The Properties of Life
Why are Cells Small?
Classification of Organisms based on Metabolic
Activities
Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes
• A Comparison of Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes
• A Summary of Organelles and Their Functions
• Metabolic Processes of Prokaryotes and
Eukaryotes
o Prokaryote Metabolic Processes
o Eukaryote Metabolic Processes
Summary
References
THE BEGINNING OF LIFE
Billion of years ago on the young planet Earth, simple
organic compounds assembled into more complex
coalitions that could grow and reproduce they were the
very first life on earth and they gave rise to every one of
the billions of species that have inhabited our planet
since.
At the time, Earth was almost completely devoid of what
we’d recognize as a suitable environment for living things.
The young planet had widespread volcanic activity and an
atmosphere that created hostile conditions.
So, where on earth could life begin?
The basic necessities for any life form
• Hydrogen
• Methane
• Nitrogen
• Carbon Dioxide
• Phosphate
• Ammonia
Water
• In order for the elements and compounds to co-
mingle and react with ocher they need this liquid
solvent
In order to grow and reproduce all, life needs a source of
energy.
Life forms are divided into two
• Autotroph/s
energy
• Heterotroph/s
o Like animals that consume other
organisms for energy
The first life form wouldn’t have had other organisms to
consume of course, so it must have been an autotroph
generating energy either form the sun or from chemical
gradients.
So, what locations meet these criteria?
Places on land or close to the surface of the ocean have
the advantage of access to sunlight but at that time when
life began the UV radiation on Earth’s surface was likely
too harsh for life to survive there.
Hydrothermal Vents
• Offers protection from UV radiation and an
alternative energy source
• A fissure in the earth’s crust where seawater
seeps into magma chambers and is ejected back
out at high temperature along with a rich slurry of
minerals and a simple chemical compound
• Energy is particularly concentrated at the steep
chemical gradients of hydrothermal vents
• Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA)
o Another line of evidence that points to
hydrothermal vents
o Scientist identified genes that are
commonly found in species across all
three domains of life (archaea, bacteria,
eukarya)
o Since these genes are shared across
species and domains, they must have
been inherited from a common ancestor
o These shared genes tell us that LUCA
lived in a hot oxygen-free place and
harvested energy from a chemical
gradient like the ones at hydrothermal
vents
Two Kinds of Hydrothermal Vents
• Black Smokers
o Releases acidic carbon dioxide rich
water heated to hundreds of degrees
Celsius and packed with sulfur, iron,
copper, and other metals essential to life
o Scientist now believe that these were too
hot for LUCA
• White Smokers
o Lost City
▪ A field of hydrothermal vents on
the mid-atlantic ridge
▪ A top candidate for the cradle of
life

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CHEM 301 BIOCHEMISTRY LECTURE BSMLS 2D | SOPHOMORE YEAR

▪ The sea water expelled here is o Multicellular organisms – they can

highly alkaline and lacks carbon replicate through sexual or asexual
dioxide but is rich in methane means
and offers more hospitable • Respond to stimulus
temperatures o They are constantly adjusting to these
▪ Adjacent black smokers may changes by adapting the internal
have contributed the carbon chemistry
dioxide necessary for life to • Has defined functions of its parts
evolve at Lost City o The interplay among the chemical
components of a living organism is
Other Theories: dynamic
• Panspermia ▪ Changes in one component
• Creation (not quite sure, kay hin2 kayg voice si causes coordination or
sir) compensation in another
component, with the whole
THE PROPERTIES OF LIFE system displaying a character
beyond that of its individual part
• Has a high degree of chemical complexity ▪ The collection of molecules
(and microscopic organization) carries out a program and the
o Thousands of different molecules make end result of which is
up a single cell’s intricate internal reproduction of the program and
structure cell perpetuation of that
o Each has its characteristics sequence of collection of molecules
subunits o Ex: Doing Aerobic Exercises
o Its unique three-dimensional structure ▪ The muscles will call for
and highly selection of binding partners additional oxygen, therefore you
in the cell breathe more rapidly, causing
• Can extract and transform energy your heart to pump faster so to
o Enabling organisms to build and maintain deliver the necessary oxygen to
their intricate structures and to do every muscle of your body
mechanical, chemical, osmotic, and o Any change in cone component will
electric work involve another change in another
o Ex: Inanimate Matter (stone, soil, air, or component
water) • Has history of evolution
▪ These tend to rather decay or to o Organisms change their inherited life
a more disorder state or to strategies to survive in new
become equilibrium with its circumstances
surroundings ▪ To survive that particular
o Living things tend to resist equilibrium environment, they have to adapt
with its surrounding • Adaptive mechanisms
• Can replicate and maintain itself require to reconstitute
o A single bacteria cell placed in a sterile their internal chemistry
nutrient medium can give rise to a billion or identity
identical daughter cells in 24 hours o The results of eons of evolutions are an
▪ Each of these cells which came enormous result in a diversity of life forms
from the mother’s cell contain ▪ Superficially, we are very
thousands of different different but…
molecules, some extremely ▪ Fundamentally, we are related
complex, yet each bacterium is a through our shared ancestry
faithful copy of the original
▪ Its construction directed entirely WHY ARE CELLS SMALL?
from the information contained
within the genetic material of the • The size of molecules that compose it are
original bacterial cell relatively small
o For prokaryotes (or single-celled) o Cells are relatively smaller than these
organisms – they do binary fission (type molecules
of sexual reproduction)

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CHEM 301 BIOCHEMISTRY LECTURE BSMLS 2D | SOPHOMORE YEAR

o Cells always have the minimum number
of biomolecules required to function
• The rate of diffusion of molecules must be
fast
o Diffusion – is the movement of molecules
across a gradient (form high
concentration to low coencentration0
o Ex: Oxygen Molecules
▪ If the size of the cell is the size of
a ball, it would take a long time
for the molecule to diffuse within
the cytosol that by the time it
reaches the mitochondrion, the
cell is starting to deteriorate
because in the absence of
oxygen to complete the electron
transport chain
o Surface-to-volume ratio must be optimal
to avoid long time diffusion
o The size of the cells is actually an
evolutionary mechanism for efficiency of
delivery
• The earliest cells must have been simple, having
only the minimum apparatus needed to sustain
life functions
o Living things that resemble these earliest
cells are known as prokaryotes
o Include (most) bacteria and
cyanobacteria
o Single-celled, but can form colonies with
some simpler differentiation
• As these simple organisms evolved they became
more advanced and the apparatus they need
became more specific and complex
o Living things that have membrane-bound
organelles are known as eukaryotes
o Complex organisms that can be single-
celled (protozoa: amoeba, euglena, etc.)
or multicellular (plants/animals)

CLASSIFICATION OF CELLS BASED ON

METABOLIC ACTIVITY

A COMPARISON OF PROKARYOTES AND

EUKARYOTES

Organelle Prokaryotes Eukaryotes

No definite
nucleus; DNA
Nucleus present but not Present
Note: Photoheterotrophs and chemoautotrophs are separate from rest
of cell
prokaryotic bacteria that live in extreme environments.
Cell Membrane
(Plasma Present Present
PROKARYOTES AND EUKARYOTES
Membrane)
None; enzymes
The Biggest Biological Distinction for oxidation
• All cells contain DNA Mitochondria reactions located Present
o The total DNA of a cell is called a on plasma
genome membrane
• Individual units of hereditary controlling individual Endoplasmic
None Present
traits coding for a specific protein or RNA is called Reticulum
a gene Ribosomes Present Present
None; Present in green
Chloroplasts photosynthesis (if plants

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CHEM 301 BIOCHEMISTRY LECTURE
present) is
localized in
chromatophores
A SUMMARY OF ORGANELLES AND THEIR
FUNCTIONS
Organelle Function
Location of main genome; site of
Nucleus
most DNA and RNA synthesis
Energy-yielding oxidation
Mitochondrion
reactions; has its own DNA
Site of photosynthesis in green
Chloroplast
plants and algae; has its own DNA
Continuous membrane throughout
Endoplasmic the cell; rough part studded with
Reticulum ribosomes (the site of protein
synthesis)
Series of flattened membranes;
involved in secretion of proteins
Golgi
from cells and in reactions that link
Apparatus
sugars to other cellular
components
Membrane-enclosed sacs
Lysosomes
containing hydrolytic enzymes
Sacs that contain enzymes
Peroxisomes involved in the metabolism of
hydrogen peroxide
Separates the cell contents from
the outside world; contents include
Cell Membrane
organelles (held in place by the
cytoskeleton) and the cytosol
Cell Wall Rigid exterior layer of plant cells
Central Membrane-enclosed sac in plant
Vacuole cells
METABOLIC PROCESSES OF PROKARYOTES
AND EUKARYOTES
Organisms can be classified according to their source of
energy (sunlight or oxidizable chemical compound) and
their source of carbon for the synthesis of cellular
material.
BSMLS 2D | SOPHOMORE YEAR
PROKARYOTE METABOLIC PROCESSES
• Prokaryotes have a diverse way of taking energy
from the environment: a different way from how
humans do
• While animals feed of other living organisms to
get energy, and plants rely on the sun,
prokaryotes rely on the sun, prokaryotes rely on
multiple ways to metabolize food
Prokaryotes utilize the following processes to sustain life
processes:
• Aerobic and Anaerobic Respiration
o Obligate aerobes need oxygen to live;
obligate anaerobes need the absence of
oxygen to live
o Facultative aerobes can live with oxygen
but can resort to anerobic respiration if it
is absent
▪ Handy mechanisms
• Sulfur Metabolism
o Bacteria that rely on this are the
“producers” in deep-sea ecosystems
• Nitrogen Metabolism
o Rely on nitrogen-based compounds such
as ammonia and nitrite; important in
agriculture
▪ Feeding the bacteria that lives
among the roots of plants
• Eats ammonia and turn
it into nitrite or nitrate
EUKARYOTE METABOLIC PROCESSES
Eukaryotes utilizes the following processes to sustain life
processes:
• Aerobic and Anaerobic Respiration
o Almost all eukaryotes are reliant on
oxygen, while there are certain
eukaryotes that are considered
facultative anaerobes
• Photosynthesis
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CHEM 301 BIOCHEMISTRY LECTURE BSMLS 2D | SOPHOMORE YEAR

o Plants and protozoa that contain

chlorophyll rely on the energy from the
sun to generate energy

SUMMARY

• Life began, hypothetically, on deep-sea beds or

oceans from which all life forms began
• What separates living things from non-living
things is their high degree of chemical complexity,
their ability to extract and transform energy, their
capability to replicate and maintain themselves,
ability to respond to external stimulus, their
defined functions and parts, and their
evolutionary history
• Cells, which are the basic unit of life, are
generally small because of their component size
as well as an evolutionary mechanism
• Cells can also be classified according to their
metabolic activity
o Eukaryotes are photoautotrophs and
chemoautotrophs
o Prokaryotes are photoheterotrophs and
chemoautotrophs
o Eukaryotes and prokaryotes differ in
metabolic activity and this allowed them
to exist in their respective environments

REFERENCES

• “The Cells” Video Lecture via Canvas

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