BIOL 112 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Red Blood Cell, Neuron, Archaea
January 4th 2017 BIOL 112
Dr. Marcia Graves – Wesbrook 131 – Monday/Wednesday 3 – 4:30 -
Unit 1: General Properties and Types of Cells
• The cell is the simplest entity that can exist as an independent unit of life
• Every known living organism is either a single cell or an ensemble of many cells (e.g E.
coli, white blood cells, etc.)
• Some cells are unicellular organisms (e.g amoeba)
• Some cells make up tissues of multicellular organisms (e.g human kidney tissue)
Diversity of cells:
• They come in all shapes and sizes (nerve cell, red blood cell, bacteria, and algae)
Unity of cells:
• What kinds of features are common to all cells? What are the kinds of characteristics
that define a cell?
o Membrane – acts as a barrier, separates the inside of the cell from the
environment
o Contain genetic information
o Communicate/respond with other cells and their environment
o All a part of an organism, or considered to be one themselves
o Replication
We define cells as the smallest entity of life capable of
1. Self-replication
2. Storing and transmitting that information
DNA -> RNA -> protein
3. Maintaining a selectively separate internal environment compared to the external
environment
4. Harness and transform energy
***Viruses are not classified as cells because they require a host to replicate for them, and they
cannot harness and transform their own energy
A note about terminology:
• Prokaryotes is a term use to define species that do not have a membrane bound
nucleus, which includes both Archaea and Bacteria
• But because we have learned how different archaea and bacteria are from each other
they became classified into distinct domains
find more resources at oneclass.com
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