The National Teachers College

Cell Biology
Ruzz Renielle K. Tabasa Ratings:
3.1BSPGEN August 20 2019

1. Research an article of your interest illustrating the application of cell biology.

Cell biology in agriculture and food sciences
Agricultural practices are considered to be the main source of food production to
meet the requirement of the continuously increasing world population. A large
number of studies are being conducted by researchers on various aspects of
agriculture and food sciences. Present issue of the protoplasma is also focused on
the cell biology of agriculture and food sciences based on an international
conference on agriculture and biological sciences organized during July 25–28,
2015, at Beijing, China. The accepted manuscripts cover various aspects of
agriculture and food sciences. Leaf crinkle disease (ULCD) is an economically
significant widespread and devastating disease in legumes particularly urdbean
(Vigna mungo). An overview of causal agent, vector, and host of leaf crinkle
disease is given by Gautam et al. (2016). The comparative study of biochemical
and ultrastructure features in senescing sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) leaves was
carried out. The multitude of membrane impairments and lots of large vesicles-
“crystals” appeared in senescing sugar beet (Romanova et al. 2016). Singh and
Prasad (2016) have described the progress made in Agrobacterium-mediated
transformation system in rice, maize, wheat, barley, sorghum, sugarcane,
Brachypodium, millets, bioenergy and forage, and turf grasses. In addition, it also
provides an overview of the genes that have been recently transferred to these
graminaceous crops using Agrobacterium, bottlenecks in this technique and future
possibilities for crop improvement. Further, Sharma et al. (2016) have
demonstrated the comparative response of two contrasting genotypes (aluminum
(Al) tolerant and Al sensitive) of chick pea (Cicer arietinum) against Al stress. They
have concluded that rapid activation of catalase followed by citrate efflux improves
Al tolerance in chick pea. Current trends of Bt crops and their fate on associated
microbial community dynamics was reviewed by Singh and Dubey (2016). The
severity of plant pathogen on crop productivity is well established. Rice bacterial
blight, caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo), is a severe disease of rice
plants. The suppression of Xoo growth by a volatile terpene, (S)-limonene is
reported by Lee et al. (2016a). Further, Lee et al. (2016b) have demonstrated the
alleviation of salt stress in Brassica rapa L. ssp. perkinensis (Chinese cabbage) by
Herbaspirillum sp. strain GW103 isolated from rhizosphere soil of Phragmites
 australis. Spoilage of stored grains and legumes is a severe agricultural problem.
The outcome of the study conducted by Kedia et al. (2016) demonstrating
antifungal and antiaflatoxigenic efficacy of Mentha spicata essential oil (EO)
against toxigenic Aspergillus flavus strain LHP(C)-D6 in chickpea up to 12 months
of storage could be an effective strategy to cope with decay of stored agricultural
produce. Heat shock proteins (HSPs) exist extensively in eukaryotes and are
conserved molecular chaperones with important contribution to plant’s survival
under environmental stresses. Overexpression of a Brassica campestris HSP70 in
tobacco confers enhanced tolerance to heat stress (Wang et al. 2016). Based on
the experiments on wild and gun 5 mutant of A. thaliana, Pattanayak and Tripathy
(2016) have reported that the significance of levulinic acid (LA) in modulating
chloroplast biogenesis at a desired phase of chloroplast development.

2. Discuss the scope limitations of cell biology

Cell Biology publishes papers of the highest quality from all areas of cell biology,
encouraging those that shed light on the mechanisms underlying fundamental cell
biological processes. The journal's scope is broad and specific areas of interest include,
but are not limited to:
Autophagy
Cancer biology
Cell adhesion and migration
Cell cycle and growth
Cell death
Chromatin and epigenetics
Cytoskeletal dynamics
Developmental biology
DNA replication and repair
Mechanisms of human disease
Mechanobiology
Membrane traffic and dynamics
Metabolism
Nuclear organization and dynamics
Organelle biology
Proteolysis and quality control
RNA biology
Signal transduction
Stem cell biology
 During the 17th Century

Robert Hooke (1665)

 He successfully invented the microscope
 The first one to have a close look of a cell appears to be. His
description of these cells was published in Micrographia. However, the
cell walls observed by Hooke gave no indication of the nucleus and other
organelles found in most living cells

Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1674)

 Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek detected other hidden,
minuscule organisms—bacteria and protozoa.
 He was a master microscope maker and perfected the design of the
simple microscope (which only had a single lens), enabling it to magnify
an object by around two hundred to three hundred times its original
size.
 What van Leeuwenhoek saw with these microscopes was bacteria
and protozoa, but he called these tiny creatures “animalcules.”
 . He went on to be the first to observe and describe spermatozoa in 1677. He
even took a look at the plaque between his teeth under the microscope. In
a letter to the Royal Society, he wrote, "I then most always saw, with
great wonder, that in the said
matter there were many very little living animalcules, very prettily a-
moving.”

19th Century
Francoise Raspail (1825)
 He established one of the concepts of cell theory: that all cells arise
from pre-existing cells. The basis of this was the witnessing of binary
fission under a microscope wherein a single cell divided into two
daughter cells.
 Theodore Schwann and Matthias Scleiden (1836)
 German scientists Theodore Schwann and Mattias Schleiden studied
cells of plants and animals respectively. These scientists identified key
differences between the two cell types and put forth the idea that cells
were the fundamental units of both plants and animals.

Rudolf Virchow (1855)

 The third doctrine of Schwann and Scleiden was proven wrong by
Rudolf Virchow. In this year, he formally enunciated in his powerful
dictum that, “Omnis cellula e cellula“, which is translated as “All cells
only arise from pre-existing cells“.

In the middle of the 19th century, Scientists had accepted the fact that it was simply not
possible to view cell structures which measure less than a half of a micrometer with the
use of a microscope. But because of the development of the cathode ray tube, they’ve
later discovered that aside from using light, electrons can be used to view these
structures.

20th Century up to the present

Phoebus Levene (1919)
 A Russian physician and chemist, first discovered the order of the
three major components of a single nucleotide (phosphate, pentose sugar,
and nitrogenous base). He was also the first to discover the carbohydrate
component of RNA (ribose), and carbohydrate component of DNA
(deoxyribose). Years later, Levene finally identified how DNA and RNA
molecules are put together.

 1933 The first prototype of the electron microscope was constructed. It is a type
of microscope which utilizes a beam of electrons to create an image of the
specimen.
Erwin Chargaff (1943)
 He began to challenge Levene’s previous conclusions.
 In 1950, he noted that the nucleotide composition of DNA differs among species
and do not repeat in the same order reached two major conclusions.
 Chargaff concluded that almost all DNA, no matter what organism or tissue type
it comes from, still maintains certain properties, even as its composition varies. He
postulated the “Chargaff’s Rule” which says that the amount of cytosine is equal
to the amount of guanine, and the amount of thymine is equal to the amount of
adenine. In short, the total amount of pyrimidines (thymine and cytosine)
approximates the amount of purines (adenine and guanine)

George Grey (1951)

 He successfully made the first continuous cell line to be cultured. The
cell line was derived from the cervical cancer cells of Henrietta Lacks, thus
these cells were referred to as HeLa cells. These cells played a significant
role in the course of cell biology

 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick derived the three-dimensional and double
helical model of the DNA (Pray 2009). After that, the process of replicating the
DNA was discovered.
 1961 The endeavor of cracking the genetic code started.
As with the rapid growth of molecular biology in the mid-20th century, cell biology
research exploded. It became possible to maintain, grow, and manipulate cells
outside of living organisms. The minimal media requirements for cells were
characterized years later. Sterile cell culture techniques were further
developed. Further advances in electron microscopy greatly facilitated the
development of transfection methods. The process of genetic engineering, or the
act of modifying an organism’s genetic material either by adding genes or deleting
some parts of it, was declared as a separate field in the 1970s.
 1970 Reverse transcriptase in retroviruses was first discovered

Frederick Sanger (1977)

 He introduced the process of DNA sequencing. The first ever
organism to have its genome sequence is a bacteriophage.
 Kary Mullis (1980)
 1980 The Polymerase Chain Reaction, a method used to amplify a
copy of a segment of a DNA was inverted by Kary Mullis .

 1996 The first ever successful effort of cloning of an organism (sheep named
Dolly) happened.
 1998 Hamilton and Baulcombe discovered the siRNA as part of post-
transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) in plants.