You are a scientist on board on a mission exploring undersea volcanic vents arou
ID: 180890 • Letter: Y
Question
You are a scientist on board on a mission exploring undersea volcanic vents around the Hawaiian Islands. On your expedition ship you have a fully equipped laboratory (like our new building will be) where you can do advance microscopy, cellular biology and biochemical characterization of the life forms you encounter You encounter a NEW unicellular EUKARYOTIC organism This organism thrives in the following conditions: -The temperature is 78 degree C -The Oxygen content is extremely low -The sulfur content is very high, and it lives in complete darkness. -The organism has the ability to metabolized sucrose, and is capable of producing ATP -The organism is capable of maintaining a resting potential of about -60 mV. and it also quickly eliminates xenobiotics -This organism has the ability to form multicellular aggregates when exposed to stressful conditions such as a decrease in the temperature below 50 degree C: you observed that when the temperature dropped all the cells appear to migrate towards a clump of cells that eventually congregated all the cells and started to creep on the bottom of the cell culture dish towards a source of light! - You discover that if you constantly change the sea-water around it, you inhibit the formation of the multicellular aggregates. Based on these observations, and what you have learned in this course and please discuss the following What sort of cell membrane does this organism have? What type of energy metabolism does it have? What are the enzyme activity profiles in relation to temperature? How does it maintain a constant electrochemical potential? What is the signaling method used to communicate and form multicellular aggregates?Explanation / Answer
1. Since this organism strives in high temperature it is a thermophile. The cell membrane of thermoplhiles have high saturated fatty acid content which allows them the retain their shape at such high temperatures.
2. Due to high sulphur content and low oxygen content, energy metabolism will be through anerobic sulphur redox reaction.
3. Thermophilic enzymes work in their optimum capacity at high temperatures. These enzymes will have more cytosine and guanine base pairs (triple bonds). They are very thermostable. But when the temperature drops, the enzymes do not work in their optimum level. This can be seen from the formation of cellular aggregates with the drop in temperature.
4. It is given that the resting potential is -60mV, this implies that the inside of the cell is 60mV lesser than the outside of the cell. This mean there are more sodium ions outside the cell. With the availibility of salt water in its surrounding the organism will not have a problem to maintain electrochemical potential through ion channels in the cell membrane.
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