FAQ: Synchrovitals (living cell)

7 facts about the structure of important biological system on the planet

A cell is an elementary living system that is capable of existing separately, independently of the other cells. This is most clearly manifested property in unicellular organisms. Any other smaller biological system, any set of molecules exist on its own can not. Therefore, the cell - the most important biological system. That's cells create life on our planet.

• 1.To understand how the cell - which means, in fact, to understand what life is, how it is arranged, how it works. And as we, the people, too, formed by cells, it is to understand what the person on the biological level.
  Cell biology is an old science. She appeared immediately after the invention of the microscope more than three centuries ago, when there was not genetics or biochemistry, and chemistry, in general, has not happened. And all these three centuries dead cells mainly studied. To look at the cage, it had to first fix, ie, stop all intracellular processes. And a dead cell, where all the stops, but all the ingredients are in place, and studied. And a dead cell representation was made up, how it is arranged. Of course, we tried to keep the cell in a state as close to a living ... but still, it was a dead cell. the picture was made on the basis of these observations, which, in general, is correct, but static. It is this understanding of the cell and included in school textbooks and university courses.
• 2.In a static picture, we can tell what's inside the house, but there are people we can not say, because people come, go, go about their business, etc. Same thing with the cell. It is actually alive, and learn to understand how the cell is built, how it functions, and most importantly - how it is formed, it was not possible on the basis of such data on the static dead cells.
  How to study a living cell? See it through a microscope? In this case we see a cell that is divided, and wherein the moving any organelles. And you want to understand the unit cells at the molecular level. Not just some morphological picture, I want to understand how it is arranged molecular she molecular functions, and only such a representation is already fully describe to us how to construct the cell.
• 3.To find out what is in a cell was needed methodological breakthrough. We had to learn to see the molecules within the living cell. This was a prerequisite for the opening of the so-called fluorescent proteins. These are small proteins that were first isolated from one, which has no "economic value" of jellyfish with a beautiful name Aequorea victoria. These proteins have one feature: if shine light of a certain wavelength on it, it starts to glow, to fluoresce. So, we can see where this protein, the molecule. Next we take a gene of the protein of interest to us, to join him fluorescent protein gene and introduced into a cell. The cell starts to produce a protein which consists of two parts: the part that corresponds to the protein under study, and that's this little part of the fluorescence, which will show us where the protein is. As a result, we can see the protein, because it shines itself. We can see it in the living cell! But then there is a desire to know not only where it is, but also how these molecules behave inside a living cell.
• 4.Currently, there are several methods that allow you to assess the mobility of proteins within living cells inside its substructures. For example, within the cell nucleus. The first such work was done in 2000, in the lab of Tom Misteli of the National Institutes of Health in the United States. This is one of the best laboratories in the field of cell molecular biology. It's over, in 2000, the laboratory was not yet so well known. And they set the following experiment in the laboratory. Imagine that there is a cell in which there is some protein. Since the protein is distributed throughout the cell, we will see that the whole cell is lit ... but we do not understand, the protein moves or not. However, any fluorescent molecules have a remarkable property: if they shine a very, very strong, they cease to glow, burn. So fade any color. And Tom Misteli laboratory was made very simple thing: the cell is selected small local area and shine on her much-much. In this region fades fluorescent protein. Accordingly - in the cell protein is either moving or not. It is necessary to clarify this fundamental issue. If it is not moving, the protein is washed out of this zone will not go away, and the rest of the fluorescent protein portion of the cell will not come into this zone. And we'll see a faded area constantly over time. If the protein moves, then faded protein goes, fluorescent protein in this area will come - and this zone will begin to fluoresce once.
• 5.And what a surprise it was when it was found that a protein in the zone, where it has faded, there comes and goes from there, that is moving, and moving with a crazy speed. Proteins in the cell are not permanently in place, they are constantly moving. As usual, the first one especially and did not pay attention to the results of this experiment, then no one believed them, then became interested and said, "Maybe something in this is," and then: "Brilliant."
• 6.This discovery really makes a review of all that we think and how we think about the device cells. This is not a stable cell arranged like a machine, it everything in place, everything works, performs its functions, everything is logical and correct. And here it turns a strange chaos. Molecules are constantly moving. They are where they seemingly should stay where they are supposed to work. They work and go out of this place, where they were supposed to be ... and begin to move throughout the cell. And the movement is completely random.
• Nowadays peptides are widely spread in pharmacology: Bonomarlot, Honluten, Pinealon.Currently they are looking, but so far no one has found some ways to targeting molecules in any particular point of the core. Squirrels run, and this molecular chaos, however, there is an extremely complex structured and efficient working cell.
• 7.Probably the most interesting thing that came out of these new facts, which is not clear - this way out of this chaos of moving molecules can form ordered formation. The cell itself is arranged very difficult, this we know. And this complexity is arranged from moving at insane speeds of molecules. As the molecules from chaos arises the order of a higher level - this is probably the main issue and the main challenge for those involved in cell structure.