Introduction to Cell Structure

BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES

Prof. S. Mukanganyama Department

Bi om ol ecul a r
I n t er a ct i on s of Biochemistry and Biotechnology
An a l y ses University of Zimbabwe
Beyo n d t h e cel l

Oct 2020
 Outline
2

• Introduction to Biochemistry
• By the end of the lectures you must know
about:
a) Basic Units of life: Cells
b) Stuctures of prokaryote,eukaryotic
cells & viruses
c) The Role of microbial cells in
disease. e.g. AIDS, Ebola, Cholera,
influenza, COVID 19
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 First to View Cells
4

• Hooke responsible
for naming cells
• Called them
“CELLS” because
they looked like the
small rooms that
monks lived in
called Cells
 Cell Structure
5

• All Cells have:

– an outermost plasma
membrane
– genetic material in the
form of DNA
– cytoplasm with
ribosomes
– all plants and animals
are made of cells
 Cell Size and Types
6

• Cells, the basic units of organisms, can

only be observed under microscope
• Three Basic types of cells include:

Animal Cell Plant Cell Bacterial Cell

 Which Cell Type is Larger?
7

Plant cell > _____________

_________ Animal cell > ___________
bacteria
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 The cell
•Basic Units of life Variable shapes and sizes +
9 needs energy to perform its specialised functions in

maintaining life.
•Smallest unit in the living organisms capable of
carrying out essential life processes.

Living systems:
•Grow
•Move
•Perform metabolism
•Respond to stimuli
•Replicate (reproduce) with high fidelity
•Life functions are ultimately interpretable in chemical
terms.
 The Cell Theory
10

1. Make up all living matter

2. Arise from other cells
3. Genetic information required during the
maintenance of existing cells and the
production of new cells passes on from
one generation to the next
4. Chemical reactions of an organism i.e.
metabolism takes place in cells
 LEVELS OF ORGANIZATION
11

Nonliving Levels:
1. ATOM (element)
2. MOLECULE (compounds like carbohydrates
& proteins)
3. ORGANELLES (nucleus, ER, Golgi …)
 Non-living Levels
12

ATOMS  MOLECULES  ORGANELLES

 LEVELS OF ORGANIZATION
13
Living Levels:
1. CELL (makes up ALL organisms)
2. TISSUE (cells working together
3. ORGAN (heart, brain, stomach …)
4. ORGAN SYSTEMS (respiratory, circulatory …)
5. ORGANISM
 Living Levels
14

CELLS – life starts TISSUES – Similar cells

 working together
here
 More Living Levels
15

ORGAN
ORGANS  SYSTEMS  ORGANISM

Different tissues Different organs

working together working together
 LEVELS OF ORGANIZATION
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Living Levels continued:

1. POPULATION (one species in an area)
2. COMMUNITY (several populations in an
area
3. ECOSYSTEM (forest, prairie …)
4. BIOME (Tundra, Tropical Rain forest…)
5. BIOSPHERE (all living and nonliving
things on Earth)
 PROKARYOTIC AND
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EUKARYOTIC CELLS
• Prokaryotic cells
"Pro"- Before nucleus.
Lack a definite membrane surrounding the
genetic material.
In various types of bacteria.
Invariably unicellular.

• Eukaryotic cells
“Eu”, - true or good and karyon for kernel or
hut.
Membrane-enclosed nucleus encapsulating
their DNA.
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 Progenitor
3.5 billion years ago
19

Archaebacteria Eubacteria

Earliest humans
3-4 million years ago

Distinction between prokaryotic cells and eukaryotic cells artificial –

share a common biochemistry
 Current system of classification
20

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Where are virus?
 Where it all started-Africa-the
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Cradle of humankind

Mother Africa
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All present-day non-African populations are descended from the

same single wave of migrants, who left Africa around 72,000 years
ago
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• 10 million years ago, several
species of large-bodied
24 hominids that bore some
resemblance to modern
orangutans lived in Africa
and Asia.
• About this time, the world
began to cool; grassland
and savanna habitats
spread; and forests began to
shrink in much of the tropics.
• Humans, gorillas, bonobos
and chimpanzees are all
descended from a common
ancestor that lived sometime
between 7 million and 5
million years ago
 Australopithecus afarensis-Lucy
3.9 and 3.0 million years ago.

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Proposed routes followed by modern humans in their exit

from Africa:
(a)Northern route to reach South Asia, the Philippines and
nearly Oceania, and
(b) secondary expansions northward through Asia to the
Americas and southwest to North Africa and Europe
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Andaman Islands in India

North
Two Great Andamanese men, circa. 1875 sentinel
islands
• The Sentinelese (also called the Sentineli or North Sentinel Islanders) -
indigenous people of North Sentinel Island in the Andaman Islands of India.

• Resist contact with the outside world.

• Among the last people to remain virtually untouched and uncontacted by modern
civilization.
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A Jarawa woman and boy by the side of the Andaman

Trunk Road

Population was 380 as of 2011

The tribes of the Andaman Islands – the

Jarawa, Great Andamanese, Onge and
Sentinelese – are believed to have lived in
their Indian Ocean home for up to 55,000
years.
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52 as of 2010

• Genetic analysis, both of nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA provide information about the origins of the
Andamese.
• The Andaman islanders have similar dental morphology to South Asians.
• The Andamanese are most genetically similar to the Malaysian Negrito tribe.
• characterized by their small bodies and gracile skeleton
• most similar to African in terms of the craniology.
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modern Aboriginal Australians are direct descendants of

a civilization that arrived in the country more than
50,000 years ago - and remained pretty much isolated
ever since.

• The origin of Australia's Indigenous people ??

• Believed to be among the earliest human migrations out of Africa.
• Modern Aboriginal peoples are the direct descendants of migrants who
left Africa up to 75,000 years ago
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 Indigenous peoples of the Americas
34

 Archaeological and genetic evidence, North

and South America were the last continents
in the world to gain human habitation
 50–17,000 years ago, falling sea levels
allowed people to move across the land
bridge of Beringia that joined Siberia to
northwest North America (Alaska)
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Original Native Americans migrated across the Beringian

land bridge between about 15,000 and 20,000 years ago.
 CELL SIZE
37

Typical cells range from 5 – 50

micrometers (microns) in diameter
 Properties of Living Systems
38

a) Biological structures serve functional

purposes. to preserve the cell as a living
entity.

b) Actively engaged in energy

transformation - ability to extract energy
from the environment.

c) Remarkable capacity for self-replication

Virtually identical copies of
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Sexual
versus asexual
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 The matter at hand
40
 Cell Structure I -
41
Prokaryotic Cells
 Prokaryotes
42

• Very small + surrounded by a rigid cell wall

• Single membrane, the plasma membrane or
cell membrane.
• No other membranes + no nucleus or
organelles.
• Distinct nuclear area where a single circular
chromosome is localised
• Internal membranous structure, mesosome,
derived from + continuous with the cell
membrane for cellular respiration activities.
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 Prokaryotes
44

• Highly cosmopolitan + varied and highly

adaptable metabolisms.
• Enormous varieties of habitats.
• Thrive in hostile conditions to eukaryotes
e.g. in lack of O2, high temperatures +
unusual chemical environments.
• High reproductive rates (less than 20
min/cell division).
• Resistant spores for survival of adverse
conditions.
 Cell Wall
45

• Rigid structures to impart shape.

• Prevents cell from expanding and bursting
• Cell wall structure and synthesis is unique to
prokaryotes.
• Two basic types of bacterial cell wall
structures Gram positive (G+) and Gram
negative (G-).
• Bacterial cells look very different following
staining with the Gram stain.
• G+ cells are Purple and G- cells are red.
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 The Gram positive cell wall
49
 The Gram positive cell wall
50

• A thick peptidoglycan layer

• Very sensitive to the action of lysozyme
and penicillin, or its derivatives.
• Penicillin is often the antibiotic of choice
for infections caused by G+ organisms.
• E.g. Streptococcus pyogenes which
causes strep throat.
• Always treated with some type of
penicillin
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 Penicillin- an antibiotic
• Metabolic product of one micro-organism that in
very small amounts can kill or inhibit growth of
other micro-organisms.

• Inhibiting cell wall biosynthesis

• Penicillin -1929 Sir Alexander Flemming -
Penicillium notatum.

• Binds to and inactivates enzymes (glycopeptide

transpeptidase) that function to cross-link the
peptidoglycan strands of bacterial cell walls
(Reactions?)
• Exposure to penicillin results in bacterial lysis.
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The inhibition of bacterial cell
synthesis by penicillin.

Rod-shaped bacterium before The bacterial cell lysing as

penicillin. penicillin weakens the cell wall.
 Bacterial Capsule
• A viscous substance forming
a layer or envelope around
the cell wall of some
bacteria.

Functions
• i) Against drying by binding
water molecules
• ii) Block attachment of
bacteriophages
• iii) Anti-phagocytic ,
• iv) Promote attachment of
bacteria to surfaces e.g.
Streptococcus mutants, (a
bacterium associated with
producing dental carries)
 Major features of
prokaryotic cells
1. Cell wall - Molecular composition: ------
Function: ------

2. The cell membrane- Molecular composition: ------

Function -------

3. Nuclear or nucleoid region- Molecular composition:

----
Function: DNA blue-print of the cell. DNA molecule
replicated to yield two double -helical daughter
molecules. mRNA is made (transcribed) from DNA to
direct the synthesis (translation) of cellular proteins.
???
 Major features of
prokaryotic cells
4. Ribosomes: Molecular composition: About
15000 ribosomes. Small (30s) subunit and a larger
(50S) subunit. The total size of a complete unit is
70S. Mass of 2.3 x 106 daltons. 65% RNA and
35% protein.
Function: Protein synthesis.

5. Cytosol-Molecular composition: gelatinous

compartment , 20% protein by weight and rich in
the organic molecules that are the intermediates in
metabolism.
Function: Intermediary metabolism
 Prokaryotic cells
7. Flagella-Molecular composition: Threadlike appendages
composed of protein. Made of a single type of protein
subunit called flagellin.
· Function: Locomotion + for chemotaxis.

8. Storage of genetic information

Two forms DNA in bacteria:
i) Chromosomal DNA
ii) Plasmid DNA
• Bacterial Chromosome: Single circular DNA
macromolecule in nucleoid region. replication, transcription,
and regulation of gene expression.
• Plasmids: One or more pieces of circular macromolecules
of extra-chromosomal DNA.
• mating capabilities, resistance to antibiotics, tolerance
to toxic metals
Cell properties from plasmid genes
a. Drug Resistance- Plasmid-governed resistance
mediated by enzymatic inactivation of the drug e.g. acetylation
or phosphorylation

b. Virulence
• Genes that code for toxins e.g. the neurotoxin of Clostridium
tetani, the cholera toxin of Vibrio cholerae!!!!
• Genes for invasiveness.
•
c. Production of antimicrobial agents
• E.g antibiotics; bacteriocins.

d. Metabolic Activities
• metabolic pathways e.g. in flavobacterium species, for nylon
degradation

e. Chromosome transfer
• Conjugative plasmids (sex factors).
 Vibrio cholerae
•Produces the cholera toxin which causes the release of a
•Signalling molecule cAMP.
• cAMP causes the cells lining the intestines to secrete large amounts of fluids
into the cavity, causing dehydration and death
•Cholera
toxin
•Pertussis
toxin
•Anthrax toxin
b-lactamases
 Cholera

• Massive diarrhoea if untreated, massive

dehydration and death.
• Catastrophic loss of body fluid (1litre/hour).
• The toxin -an 87-kDa protein catalyses the
formation of [cAMP].
• 100 fold increment in intracellular [cAMP] induced
by cholera toxin causes the symptoms of cholera
by inducing these epithelial cells to pour out
enormous quantities of digestive fluid.