You are a scientist on board on a mission exploring undersea volcanic vents arou
ID: 181838 • 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 78degree 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 50degree 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) The temperature suggests that the unicellular organism is thermophile that is surviving at extreme temperatures and does not die in lower temperatures rather aggregates itself. therefore the cell membrane will high levels of saturated fatty acids to maintain the cell structure at elevated temperatures.
(2) Since the oxygen content is low, the organism will undergo anaerobic mode of energy metabolism utilizing the high levels of sulfur content.
(3) The enzymatic activity at higher temperatures get altered as the kinetic energy of the enzymes gets increased which results in their collision. The metabolism is similar to fermentation which gets altered or might be increased thus resulting in more metabolism of sucrose.
(4) The organism maintains a constant electrochemical potential by maintaining the balance of ion channels through the membrane as it does not allow the foreign particles to enter inside the cell by elimininating it.
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