Cell happen to be fundamental unit of life. New cells will arise from existing cells. A cell will divide to give rise to two cells and these two cells can form four cells and so on. This is termed as “Cell reproduction” or “Cell division“. Cell division usually occur by Mitosis or Meiosis . Following… Read More »
In the previous posts we looked into eukaryotic cell division (Mitosis) and its regulation at checkpoints. Today we will discuss about another important type of cell division called as Meiosis. Introduction : Meiosis is a special kind of cell division that occur in germ cells of sexually reproducing organisms, where it reduces the chromosome number… Read More »
All the living organisms, even the enormous ones, start their journey from a single cell. The process through which cells originate from existing living cells is called as cell division. Each cell have the ability to divide into two daughters cells (In mitosis), which again can grow and divide. This after many cycles (of growth… Read More »
Our Earth exhibits a large variety of living organisms, be it different kinds of plants, insects, sea creatures or other animals. In addition to these living forms, there are many organisms which we cannot see with our naked eye but are present around us. There are an estimated 1.5 – 1.7 million named species on… Read More »
The nucleus of a eukaryotic cell is essential for the storage and utilization of genetic information. The contents of the nucleus are enclosed by a complex nuclear envelope that separates the nucleus from the cytoplasm. The nucleus of a non-mitotic cell contains: Chromosomes, highly extended nucleoprotein fibers, also called chromatin. An irregularly shaped electron-dense structure,… Read More »
Every living creature on this planet Earth needs to extract energy from the dietary food, a process termed as Catabolism ( breaking down of complex molecules into simpler molecules to yield maximum energy, eg: Glucose gets converted by a process involving Glycolysis, Krebs cycle and electron transport chain – to yield ATP). The opposite cellular… Read More »
Everything on this Earth – living and non-living, is made up of atoms. An atom is the smallest unit of matter that has the characteristic properties of a chemical element. Two or more different or similar atoms will combine to form “Molecules” with the help of chemical bonds. Many molecules, joined together in an organized manner… Read More »
If one looks inside the nucleus of every human cell, there are 46 tiny rod like structure called as Chromosomes. These chromosomes are made of tightly coiled strands of Deoxyribonucleic acid – DNA. It is one of the two main nucleic acids found in our cells. DNA happens to be the genetic material in all living… Read More »
An eukaryotic cell is covered by a two layer plasma membrane. The region inside the plasma membrane can be divided into fluid like cytoplasm and Nucleus. The nucleus is an organelle found in all eukaryotic cells with the exception of Red blood cells. It happens to be the largest organelle in animal cells and also… Read More »
Enhancers They are short DNA fragments with several prominent features such as: driving the expression of the target gene, orientation relative to a target gene promoter, functionally independent of genomic distance, sensitivity towards DNase treatment (since its neucleosome free region), functional influence over chromatin architecture by allowing binding of transcription co-activators and histone acetylation, and… Read More »