The Cell

[ Music ] Welcome everybody to another episode of Dr. Matt and Dr. Max Medical podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Mike Tadarovich. Here's my co-host, Dr. Matthew Barton. Is this episode brought by someone? Or some. Matt wants to get straight into it. Yes, you're right. This episode is brought to you by a scientific outreach grant from the Biochemical Society. So we. Where's that based, UK? Based in the UK. We were fortunate enough to obtain a grant from the Biochemical Society and they were kind enough to give us some money to support us creating content focused on biochemistry. So biochemistry is obviously including things like today's topic, the cell. It's organelles. So you can't have biochemistry with that cell? Very true. So that's why we're starting with the cell. But other things like metabolism, protein synthesis, a whole range of functions within the body. So thank you to the Biochemical Society. Today we're talking about the cell, but before that, Matt. Yeah. There's been a lot going on in your neighbourhood. Yeah, it's been a crazy, what, two weeks? Yeah, so. Well, we're supposed to do a podcast before the new year. Yes. But some natural events got in our way. Yeah, it's the 9th of January today of 2024, the new year. Happy new year. Happy new year, everyone. Merry Christmas. So like you said, we were supposed to record last year at the end of last year. And then I get a text from Matt saying. Did you get a whole lot of repeated texts? I did. Yeah, I did. So I got a text from Matt. I got 50 texts from Matt. The same text. Basically saying, hey, can't record. So this is a good indication of Matt. Hey, sorry, can't record. The storm has bugged everything up. And I'm like, oh, what happened? And he sends me footage. And Matt lives on, what, an acre? Two acres. At the bottom of a mountain. And apparently a tornado came down the mountain through your property. And if you drive through Matt's neighborhood, I'd say every tree above five metres is snapped in half. I'm not five metres, maybe. Ten, fifteen. Doesn't matter. There's a lot of massive gum trees around your area. They're all snapped. And Matt, a couple of his trees decided to snap off and destroy his neighbor's house. So good job, man. Yeah, it was, it was crazy. So this was on Christmas night. Yeah. Not Christmas Eve? No, not Eve. It was on the 25th. So, so Santa would already come and deliver this presents. Luckily, good. Okay. So it was about eight thirty at night. And I was watching a movie, which on Netflix, which actually had kind of. Kind of a publictik kind of things happening. Yeah. And it had like storms happening at the time. This storm. Yeah. Well, these are real, less around, Santa is great. Because my parents, they live, they've got a great inflate on their property. Yeah. They come and go as they wish. But they were down the bottom of the Gold Coast, visited my sister, who was also visiting. And they're like, oh, they text me and she said, oh, there may be a storm coming. Just close the windows. Yeah. And I was like, ah, because at this time of year, you get storms every night. Always. So you kind of don't take it serious. Yeah. And probably compared to other places, they're pretty intense storms. Yeah. The average storm here. And so, I looked at the radar. I didn't look that concerning. So I just got back to my movie. And then, as I said, it got to the point in the movie where there was lots of crazy weather events and things happening. And I thought, ah, I better go and just check the grading for it. And so I got up. And then I thought there was, because my neighbour on the mountain side, he's a mechanic. So he always has, like, trucks and all sorts of crazy machinery in his backyard. I thought he had, like, a semi-trailer or something parked just between his house and mine. And it was idling. And I thought you were hearing. I thought I thought. Like, it's always me. Kind of, not just a machine, but kind of just a airy sound. Yeah. And then, I went to the kitchen window to listen. I was like, what is that? And then, it started to rain. And so, by the time I kind of walked around the bench of the kitchen, the lights went out. And then kind of came back on and then off again. Yeah. And then, by the time I got to the front door, which I don't know is maybe 10, 15 minutes or 15 minutes. And that's got an enormous house. That's very long. Yeah. And I was like, well, and then the wind just started. Yeah. And it was like, could you hear snapping? Next level. Cracking. Yeah. It's not like you hear the wind like you do in a normal storm. Yeah. It's just this loud intense, continuous sound. With all these. Yeah. With all these background noises, like you said, things smashing and. Great. But we live in Queensland. We don't get tornadoes. No, that's like parts of America. We're not in Kansas anymore. And so, to have a tornado with 200 km/h winds coming through your backyard, we're not made for that. We're not built for that. And so, all your trees are down. Yeah. There are two trees, which are, because these are all gum trees, which are eucalyptus tree, which are hardwood. Yeah. Strong, strong. Yeah, they're monsters. There was two that were like called iron barks, because I guess that's named accordingly. Yeah. They snapped. That's all were they? Are 20 and 25 metres? Oh, it's a big tree. They snapped mid-trunk. So like six metres up. Yeah. Just like a twig. Well. And one of them broke, and the whole tree went about seven metres until it landed. The wind? The wind picked it up like an umbrella. The whole 20 metres of the tree carried it seven metres before it landed. And then unfortunate landed on part of my neighbour's house. Oh my god. So how's your neighbour's house? Were they home? No. Luckily. So, their house is extreme. I don't know if it's a ride off, it will obviously need a new roof, and because there's a lot of water damage, probably need new. Oh man, that's jibrock and so forth. That's horrible. But you're safe. They were safe. And. A lot of like. Didn't have power for nearly two weeks. Yeah, that was a bit hard. Yeah, that would have been rough. Because it was like real humid. Yeah, oh yeah. And sticky. One day was like 38 degrees Celsius. The nights were hard. Yeah. But luckily we two days into it, we were able to get a generator. Oh yeah. Which ran the fridge, and you know, just some basics. But no egg con. It's hard to get used to it, eh? Yeah, I don't know how people survive that. And just a fan overnight. Yeah. Oh, it got through it. It was an experience. Okay. And then we got on the New Year's Day, we got flash floods. I know. You did have flooding. You couldn't get in and out of your area. You had water across the road. So, and it's still raining outside. But you know what? What we have done is we've been able to. take this challenge that has been presented to us. And just like a postman, Ryan Hale or Sean, we are recording. And we are recording an episode on the cell. And this is important. Because that was a cell. That was a storm cell. But this is a eukaryotic cell. Okay. This is a cell of the human body. So eukaryk, just as a definition. Yeah. Just is basically what we're going to talk about today. Yeah. What a plant cell. We're going to talk about an animal cell. An animal cell, specifically human. We're going to talk about our cells. Knowing you, you'll probably chuck in a couple of animal cells here and there. Useless facts. Actually, I don't think I will. Oh, good. But when we talk about the human body, we need to understand that we are an accumulation of 30 trillion cells. Right? 38. 36. Okay. 32. So I've got a publication, I think it was published last year, which I referred to. 36 trillion cells. Yeah. Make up the human body. If you're a male, weigh in 70 kilos at a height of 176 centimeters. That's me. That's not that tall. 36,000. 36 trillion cells. Right. Female. 28 trillion. And how about you? And a child that is of 10 years of age. Yeah. A weighing 32 kilos is 17 trillion cells. So that's probably closer to me. A height of 138 centimeters. Yes, that's you. Okay. Very good. Very good. So let's say 30 trillion cells for the average person, male and female. Right. And in of those 30 trillion cells, there's about 200 different types of cells. When I say type, that could simply be classifying them broadly. According to function or structure, or both. Right. So around about 200 different types of cells, which we tend to categorize in biology to make things easier. So we'd have to learn 200 different cell types. We categorize them into tissue types. So we take those 200 types of cells and go, okay, which ones are functionally similar? Fit into this banner. Yeah. And so we break it now down into four categories, which are the four different tissue types of the body, which we've done episodes on, which is connective tissue, epithelial tissue, muscle tissue, and nervous tissue. Yep. And so all those 200 different cell types pretty much fit underneath those four banners. Those four banners. Yeah. And so of these cells, you could probably subclassify them into stem cells and then immature cells and then mature cells. And there's different names for them. We've got suffixes, right prefixes and suffixes. So generally the suffix of a cell is a site, C-Y-T-E. And then the prefix that goes in front can indicate either where it is, or what it does, or where it is along its maturation pathway. Right. So you can have something like an osteoblast. Osteo means bone, blast means it's, you know, immature. You can have an osteocyte, which is a mature bone cell. And then there's a whole range. Like you can have macrophages, adipocytes, fibroblast, mast cells, plasma cells, condyor sites, osteoblast, osteoclast, pericytes, particular cells, basophils, neutrophils, theocentophils, osteocytes, pericostial cells. These are just some examples of all the 200. No, these are just just some within connective tissue. Oh, well, okay. Yeah. So the point is there's a lot. But I've got a question for you, right? I want to know if you've got something like, let's say, a bone cell. Yeah. And then you've got a red blood cell. Yeah. They're very different. They look totally different. Their function is totally different. Their location is totally different. So my question is, what makes a cell a cell? What's the definition of a cell? Oh, a cell. Of a cell. Yeah. I've got a definition here. What to see. How good you are. What defines a cell? Well, I think it wouldn't need to probably have certain components. So it probably needs a cell membrane. Yes. That's a big tick for being a cell. It needs to perform metabolic functions, which kind of make it alive in some way. Yeah. And the definition of living is poor. We don't have a good definition of living. Yeah. Mostly you'd say have the ability to replicate, but I know some cells lose that ability. Yeah, very true. But you'd kind of, like, red blood cells that can't replicate. You'd kind of categorize it. Yeah. With that ability. Yeah. So I think it have to perform some degree of, well, by a chemical, not like a metabolic function. So you're saying it needs a plasma membrane needs to undergo some degree of metabolic function. Yeah. And that's pretty much it. Well, you'd say that the other ones, you're going to have cells that don't can't do those things. Yeah. Definition of a cell is hard, isn't it? Just like the definition of life is hard. Yeah. So I think one of the big ticks is it needs to be membrane bound. Right. And I think the other one is it needs to be a fundamental block of life. However, the definition of life is tricky. So it fits within what we were trying to say earlier within the different tissue type, so the body, by having certain components of it. So like certain structural components will then dictate how it performs its functions, which then probably fit then within the tissue type that it's classified as. Yeah. So for example, you can have an erythrocyte, a red blood cell, which is just packed with hemoglobin, which carries oxygen and carbon dioxide. That's its function. That's what it does. You take an osteoblast, which is a bone-building cell, and that's going to have the capacity to secrete substances that build bone. Yeah. Right. And it will have other organelles and so forth. So generally speaking, and this is what we're going to focus on today, if you were to be general about a cell, you would say it needs to be membrane bound. Because I don't think there's an exception to that. I don't think so either. Most have organelles. But there's exceptions. Most will have a nucleus with DNA. Exceptions. Exceptions. And you'd actually say, we'll get to this. And this will annoy you, but you'll say the majority of cells in your body. Don't have those last two things. Yeah, that's very true. They don't have a nucleus. Yep. And they don't generally have many organelles of, if any. Because the majority of cells in your body are? Red blood cells. That's right. When they're reticular sites undergo that maturation process, they gut themselves and just fill up with hemoglobin. Oxygen carrying ion-based proteins. So, yeah, so to start off, the definition of cell is tricky. But what we're going to do is we're going to take a typical cell. Pretty much if you were to take a piece of paper and just draw a circle. And then you draw a bunch of intracellular, so inside cell components, which we call organelles, and talk about the general functions of those various organelles. Don't you think? Yeah, so I think a couple of terms as well just to get us started. Obviously, the components that you mentioned were the plasma membrane. And then you have the fluid inside. Yeah. So what's generally the fluid inside referred to as? Sidoplasm. Yeah, so this is a bit interesting. Sidoplasm. But not a lot of interest. Or cytosol, which is the difference. Well, it has to do, and I'm just going off the top of my dome here. Do you have the definition with you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. My thought is that the cytoplasm is everything inside the cell, including the organelles. And the cytosol is simply the fluid inside the cell that surrounds the. Yes, that's right. So when you. So when you hear cytosol, it's just the fluid inside. Yep. But cytoplasm is the fluid with the organelles. Very good. So technically you would say a cell is a cell membrane with a cytoplasm. Yeah, that makes sense. And then whatever that stuff is in the fluid would govern the function of cells. It might include endoplasmic reticula. It may not. It might include peroxisomes. It may not. And we're going to go through all those, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there are functions. And some cells that have heaps for particular reasons and some that don't have much. Okay. Thanks for that. Now, when it comes to cells, because there's so many in there, so different, you can have some cells that are huge, right? But you can see with a naked eye. Yeah, like an ovum, like an egg of a female's egg cell. I think you'd also be able to see muscle fibers, which are considered a cell. Yeah. A neuron. A neuron. Yeah. And these can be extremely long as well. So the longest muscle I'm probably guessing was one of the mesotorists. Oh, yeah. That would be one of my guesses. Yeah. So that could be on me, meter and a half. Yeah. Yeah, very true, which is made up of multiple muscle cells. That's right. But if you were to just pull one muscle cell out, it may not go that full length, but it would be extremely long. Yeah. But it's still not as long as a neuron. I mean, neuron would be probably the longest sensor. You'd think so. Like the sciatic nerve would be made up of multiple neurons. But these neurons will go from the spinal cord down to your feet. Yeah. Right? So over a meter long. And like you said, for you, about three and a half meters long. But then you've got other large cells, like an ovum, which is probably the size of a full stop. So you might not say it's a big cell. That's big for a microscopic world. Yes. And then you've got a sperm cell, which is the counterpart to the egg cell, which is one of the smaller cells in the body. So you've got a whole range, a whole multitude of cells. And then you have something like an adipocyte. Oh, yeah. Which has the capacity to get bigger. Oh, that's true. Depending on how much you fill it with. Fill it with lipids. Lipids. Fat soluble substances. Which you would say, I guess, is the cytopus right in some way. Yeah. It's just filled with triglycerides. Yeah. Right. And just, so it grows accordingly. So it grows accordingly. According to the echeloric intake. How much you load it up with TCA, or was it tricyclycerides? Yeah. Yeah. TCA is the cycle. Okay. Tri-carboxylic acid cycle. Tags. Tags. TCA is what you refer into. But those cells, they fill up. And then, because now they're storing fat for energy. And then if you use them, they shrink. But the cell remains big. It's just empty. So, going back to the. Cool. Good. Good. Well, I'm just working off that. Yeah. With a person that is weighing 70 kilos. Let's say. Okay. Yeah. About 70. Um, what? How many kilos of adipose tissue do you think that would constitute? No, it's varied. Okay. Oh, I would say. Between 12 to 20%. Yeah. So about 15 kilos. Yeah. Is of adipose site. Okay. Or adipose tissue. So what's that? I'm not very good at maths. And then we go to water. Yeah. What what's generally considered the water content of that body? In volume. Yeah. As in total volume. Yeah. 42 liters for a 70 kilogram person. Yeah. Which is what 60%. Yeah. So 42 liters. So 42 kilos of water. Yeah. Is that of that 70 kilos. And then we go to cellular mass. Yeah. So this just means if you were to pull out 36 trillion cells. Yeah. What would they weigh? Oh. Okay. Aren't we in, I suppose water isn't cells. So if I'm 70 kilos. And 45 kilos of me is water. I'm going to assume the rest is probably going to be mostly cells. So that's going to be 25 kilos. Yeah. 20 to 25 kilos. Yeah. So it's interesting because I wonder. So from this paper they've given the person 70 kilos. Yeah. Now they've calculated 42 kilos is water. Yeah. But as we know, the majority of that water is intracellular. Yes. But then when they've calculated cellular mass, they've given that 45 kilos. So I'm my thoughts would be a lot of that is water mass. Exactly. That's what I was going to say. Because if you had to take that out, if you were to remove the water, they would be closer to 20 kilos. But that makes sense. But you're also going to have some cells in there that don't have water. Right. So, like a deeper science. Yeah. That cells. Yeah. They're pretty much that it's not that they're absent of water, but they're relatively void of water. So, okay. So you're saying 70 kilogram mile at me. 45 liters of water inside my body, which is distributed both within the cells and outside cells. That's 42 liters of water. But when we look at your cellular mass. But it's distributed both inside and outside cells. But then if you take just the cell mass, there's going to be water in there. Yeah, that's right. And that's 42. 45. 45 kilograms. Yeah. And so when we go with that. So let's stick with the mass. We'll call that biomass. Right. So 45 kilograms of me is cells. Cells. Yep. So what percentage is that? 45 of 70. That's around about 60%. Okay. So of that, what do you think, what cell type do you think constitutes most of that mass? Well, for me, muscle obviously. Well, it is muscle. Okay. But not for you. You're talking me specifically. Well, this is this typical person. Good to see you. Sorry. Welcome to the gun show. Welcome everybody to Dr. Matt Dr. Mike's gun show. Sorry. So muscle mass is the majority. Yeah. So 22 kilos. Yeah. That 45 kilos is sleigh the muscle. All right. What's the rest? Just spread across the others. What are you reckon? Fat. Fat's next. Okay. So 12 kilos. 12 and a half kilos. You're going to flipped for you between the muscle and the fat one. Yeah. All right. Enough. No, it's not because I don't think it's not because I think that you are. I'm heavy. It's simply because I just don't think you have much muscle. It's called marbled tissue. Oh, your wagyu. That's why I'm going to call you wagyu button now. So there we go. Look, when I finally get eaten by a cannibal, they'll appreciate me. I wonder who that cannibal will be. Unlike you. That'll be lovely. This is a tough, let's hope that if we're ever on a plane together, it doesn't crush in the Andes. Yeah. Anyway. Yum. So a few other things that make up a lot of mass. Well, that's not really those two things. It's good little muscles and adipose tissue. Make up most significant amount of cell mass. Cell mass. Yeah, okay. Now, the next one. Like, can we talk about the clinical implications of that? Of students knowing that. Yes. Well, that's important. It is important because those two muscles, sorry, those two biomass tissue types are actually insulin. Is this where you're going to go with? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Insulin dependent. Insulin dependent. Dependent. Which means generally speaking, they need to have insulin present to be able to access glucose from the blood supply. From blood. So that means for you to be able to suck glucose out of your bloodstream, you need insulin present. Yep. And so two types of diabetes, type one, type two, which your patients may have problems with insulin presence or the sensitivity to it may impact those two cell types. Therefore, it's telling you that a significant volume of your body is both glutamusol and adipose. So that's going to impact the way that they can utilize glucose. And therefore, the downstream effects, what the body then will try to react to by not having that. So releasing fat or glycogen or other hormones to try to rectify the situation. Yeah, yeah. If you're a diabetic, either type one or type two, and your glucose is locked within your bloodstream, you need insulin to pull it out. But the thing is our brain and our liver and a whole bunch of organs don't require insulin, the insulin independent. But there are, like you said, those two tissues are dependent on insulin. But they make out, and that's the thing. It's like, oh, by numbers. I'll get to that in a second. There's pretty much only two tissue types that truly need insulin. But by mass, they make up the majority of the body weight. So they're going to pull in a significant amount of their glucose. And because they're insulin dependent, that's the reason why diabetics truly need their insulin. That's right. Yeah. So going down the list in terms of other cell types that make up a lot of mass, we've now go to blood. So this would be blood cells. By mass or by number? By mass. They're heavy. Well, as in cumulatively. Yeah. Four and a half kilos. So, so four and a half kilos of us is just red blood cells. Not the plasma. Cellular components of blood. So if we did a full body hematocrit. Yeah. So if you took every drop of blood. And spun it. But also blood. It's not only blood within intravascular, but it's also within bone, spleen, liver. Okay. So if you took all that out. If I were to take you and just ring you out into a giant tube and spin it down, there would be this compact cell mass down the bottom. Which would weigh about four and a half kilos. And that's what we call hematocrit. Right. The hematocrit is the percentage of whole blood. Well, hematocrit is the percentage of whole blood that is made up of red blood cells. That's right. Yeah. But I'm talking, but I'm talking this of the whole fluid. There's blood cells elsewhere. That's not just intravascular. Okay. They're in other regions like red bar marrow, spleen. So by number. So that's a lot by, I'll get to number a second. Because it's small. Red blood cells. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Seven microns. Seven to ten micrometers. Okay. So super tiny. Yeah. Because they have to be small enough to fit through. Compilaries. Single file. The smallest capillary. Yeah. How many? Oh, I'm going to get to that in a second. Oh, okay. Let me go through and just mass first. Okay. I believe I. 1.2 kilos. Just the cells in the cells. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Then we get to the cerebral cortex. Oh, yes, yes. That's about 800 grams. Wow. So just under a kilo. That's weird. Because I wouldn't even think that cerebral cortex, including the water and everything else would be that heavy. It's a lot of fat in it. Yeah. But that's kind of extra cellular. Yeah. But that's a lot of cells. Then skin. So if I skinned you and weighed you. Is it skinned or skinned? Skinned. It's definitely a skinned. 800. Yeah. About the same. 850 grams. Is that it? Yeah. The same is the cortex. Yeah. That skin must be quite thin then. Well, that's the thin skin. Epidermis. Dracking on. Must just be the epidermis. I mean, there's five layers. The epidermis. Well, the dermis is mostly connective tissue. Yeah. So I wouldn't call it skin. And then we have about a half a kilo of cells in the small intestine. That make up the small intestine or inside the small intestine. Makeup. Right. These aren't bacterial salts, by the way. Which we probably have an additional 30 trillion of. Probably in the same amount again. Wow. So we've got about 60 trillion cells. Yeah. Because we can't live without that bacterial. So if we truly say you right now, there's probably 60 trillion cells. So the big one to one. 30 trillion eukaryotic and 30 trillion prokaryotic. We'll get to those definitions shortly. Because it's important. So now we can go to the cell number. So that was just by cellular mass. Yeah. Now we go number. So this is what constitutes that's 30 trillion cells. Okay. So what was the biggest volume? By biomass. By muscle. Okay. So if you then count the muscle cells, clear the muscle cells. Oh, okay. Yeah. How many? So just the gross number. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good question. I'm going to say not much more than billions. Billions, billion, 580 billion. Oh, it's a lot more than I thought. Okay. I'd oppose. Probably. Or about the same. A bit. 300 billion. Okay. Less. Lever. About 400 billion. Lever. 400 billion. Really? Yeah. Okay. Stribal cortex, 80 billion. You're right. Skin, 600 billion. Yep. And this small intestine, 700 billion. Red blood cells. Now, red blood cells. Now we go to blood. All right. So of the blood, which was only 4.7 kilos. Yes, by mass. In terms of cell number, 32 trillion. How does that work? That doesn't make sense. Well, only 30 trillion cells. No, 36. We're 36 trillion. So you're basically saying that nearly pretty much 90% of us is red. 90% of our cell mass is red blood cells. Well, yeah. It depends what you call the red blood cell. Like in the lineage. Well, you got, like I said, at start, you got the, from the start of it all to its mature end. So if you were to. Arithropoysis. Or hematopoysis. If you were to. Or blood cells. Pull all that out. Which one? Or hemato. Or just red blood. So that includes white blood cells. That includes white blood cells. Okay. 32 trillion. Wow. So boy, that's more than I thought. Yeah. So you're basically saying there was half a trillion of all those other ones. Pretty much. Or average. And so they're just making up a very small percentage. In number. In number. But as you saw in mass. In size. They contribute a lot more. It's like what 90% does is that I can't access my calculator. So well, I've always come across of red blood cells about 60 to 7% of you. Like if you were to do you just take a person's blood and then do the count of red blood cells. 89%. So 89% is red blood cells. If you were just to take a person's hematocrit. Yep. And just count the red blood cells. Yes. I don't know. It's like three to five million per. And do that calculation is probably about 60% of your total cell mass. Yes. Because you don't have much because you don't that's just in your blood vessels. Right. But then if you were to go elsewhere. Yeah. I think there'd be a lot of blood elsewhere. True. Wow. Okay. So you've. It's a lot of. You've orientated us to. Understanding. The different cells by mass and by number. I think we need to start talking about. The cell itself and take a general cell and go through all the different organelles that it's structure. What do you think? Yep. But I think we should throw in an analogy before we get into the. Okay. Wheat. Is it wheat or just. The granular level. Granula. Okay. We're talking about granular sites. As it feels, as it feels. All right. Okay. What's this analogy? Is this an analogy that the listener can use? I'm so. To make all of this. So it makes more sense. I think so. Yes. Okay. We'll see. So we know historically your analogy is pretty terrible. Mine allergies tend to be the ones that the listener. Just enjoys it. A little bit more. We've got emails where they've said prefer mats. But anyway. Yeah. Let's leave you through another email address. Oh, do you, Matt? You're the best. Love, Matt. I mean, whoops. Love. Cross-ranger. All right. Sometimes you would have heard the analogy of the cell being the house, different parts of the house. No. No, you've never heard that. Or the city or a city. I've heard the city. No, we've done a city before. I think we've done a city in the immune system or something like that. No. When we did the immune system, you spoke something about the Ottomans getting attacked and there was some giant bridge in the water or anchor or something ridiculous. Students enjoyed that. No. We've got a free historical. Oh, here we go. Matt loves to talk about the Ottoman Empire. Anyway. Today's analogy for the cell is going to be a university. All right. So the cell itself is a university campus. Yes. All right. Now, how do you want to start? Do you want to go out in or do you want to? Out in. Okay. All right. So generally with a university, you need to have the outer security perimeter fence that kind of tells everyone this is. Keep the rabble. It's the perimeter that come. Yeah. This is now a university. Okay. It's only learned individuals may enter. Possibly. Yeah. Now, that is a cell membrane. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Now, we're not going to get into the weeds of this. It's just the wall or the perimeter fence. Well, we'll talk about cell membrane in detail. Yeah, that's right. Okay. So you're just sort of giving us lay of the land, lay of the campus. So the perimeter, cell membrane. Yep. All right. You get inside the cell inside the campus. What is that? So that's the site as plasm. That's called the site of plasm. You walk into the grounds. That's right, the grounds. Okay. So the campus, campus grounds where they're nice grass and landscape in unless you went through a tornado. Yes. Yeah. I don't have to go further with that. That's great. Now, you want to find the library, which is going to hold all the important information and knowledge for the university. All right. Okay. So that's the nucleus. All right. Yeah. And what's the knowledge? What's the information that's carrying? That's, uh, well, books and… Don't you meant? No. In the analogy. Oh, there's DNA. There's DNA. It's DNA. Yeah. So the books with the information is DNA. The library is the nucleus. Yeah. All right. This is holding water so far. Okay. So then we have to, um, translate that information into a product. Right. Now, in the cell, we change the DNA into RNA. Yep. And then into a protein, usually, right? So in this analogy, we have the… we'll call it the ER, the rough endoplasmic reticulum, which is… Rough or the smooth? The rough. Okay. Okay. Now, what makes it rough is it's got rubber zones. Now, in this analogy, this is going to be the classrooms with the teaching… I don't want to say professors. Is that the correct term? Yeah. We'll call it professors. They're professors there to do the translation of the knowledge, so change it from the books to something that's meaningful to then the student, which is essentially the protein. Yeah. Because they're the output of the university. No one's confused at all with this. Uh, right. So let me get this straight. You've got a student who's gone to the library and they've grabbed a textbook. They know that there's knowledge in the textbook, but they can't understand it. Yep. So to understand it, they must take this textbook or DNA out of the library. So out of the nucleus, and go somewhere where they can translate it. Yep. And that place that they can translate it is going to be a classroom. That's right. Which is… Could be anything from lecture halls to tutorials or prep classes. Okay. So that's another membrane bound. Yes. It's got a wall around it, right? Not a cell wall, because it's not plants we're talking about, but a membrane. And in this classroom, this is the rough endoplasmic reticulum. Yeah. Because it's full with professors. There's a ribosomes. Yeah. And ribosomes allow for us to translate DNA or more specifically RNA into proteins. Correct. And so the protein is the student. That's correct. That's correct. So once the knowledge has been translated to them by the ribosomes, they are proteins. They have the capacity to do something now. They can go off and do something. Is that correct? That's right. But before they get to go off and change the world, yeah. So they need to have the specifics of what, you know, degree or what certificate or what level of qualification they have. So that's like pros, post-translational modification, and that's the golgi. Okay. So that's a packaging, package them up. So ready for graduation, are you graduating with a bachelor's or is that a master's or is it a PhD? And so basically that's your identification. So the goal is the graduation where they give you your certificate. Yes. Identify you with something as an outcome. You can now do this. That's right. And then you can leave the cell. And then most graduates will leg it from the university and never want to come back. They'll leave and they'll get a job because what they'll do is just like the golgi packaging something up for export out of the cell, the student, the protein, is now packaged up with a certificate to exit the university and get a job. And I can just show that certificate and say, I'm qualified to do this. Give me a job. And this is where I think most students do lead the university and never want to come back. Yes. Yes. But there will be some that will hang around and do some work within the cell, which is still within the university. So they go, you know what, I'm not, I'm not ready to go. I've developed knowledge. I'm a protein. I'm a student. But I want to work more within this institute, within this cell. And they work within the labs or they do other teaching. So these proteins might become rubber zones, these proteins might become enzymes, they might facilitate it. Well, they might go and work within the smooth ER, which is now a bit more specific. I'd love to know how you're going to turn the smooth ER into a, well, you know, a lot of those graduate students, which here are proteins, we'll, you know what they'll do? They'll go to the pub because of the pub you can have a drink, right? When you drink alcohol you need to detoxify and that's what the smooth end I was gonna say a lot of Synthesizers fats. Yeah, I was just gonna say that you tend to do it the problem. We eat a lot of a lot of bad food A lot of the postgraduate students will start to do research. Yes in the research can be like specific laboratories Which is the smooth they are? Oh, so it does specific things like oh, sorry Listen, let's just scrap my analogy for the new one works so So they're work within a lab where that lab will produce particular things. Yeah, all right Do you think we've confused people on that? No, no, I think it's actually quite good. What about the mitochondria? mitochondria is the energy house of the university so this could be what a cop out solar panels This could be battery storage. Oh, here we go. I don't really think universities will have a coal plant or a Nuclear reactor. No, I think they're gonna have the students that failed shovel coal That's that's the their punishment And then you've got you got like cleaners of the university. You know grounds keepers. So that's Liza zones Liza zones and rocks are zones And they just clean everything up and then all the buildings. Oh, yes, the structure of it is the cytoskeleton Okay, so these are structural proteins like actin and microfilaments things like that Microtubules, okay And that's your university and that's the cell well the end So now I think we can jump into what they all do yeah bit of detail But I had a question for you we're gonna start talking about the cell model But I had a question for you because you did say it at one point and I thought I should jump in here I'll let you go and I You let me go smart decisions. I always get criticized for stopping you fairly. Yes, so why would there be organelles that have their own membrane? So why okay, I get the point that a cell has a membrane that wraps it up for Protection to allow it. It's kind of Selectively permeable. Yeah, allow some things in and some things can't get in and out and so forth But why would you do it or you've answered the question specifically? You just defined why we need membranes Because they separate what's happening inside something to outside and they're selectively permeable So they can allow certain things to remain in and allow certain things, but why would that be bad once you're in the cell there Why would that be bad? Yeah, what do you mean? So why would you want to? Separate segregate well the cell is Compared to all the machinery inside of it is enormous just like a university and a student, right? So if for example, I said Or the learning all your educates so the library right with the books if I said there's no library We just scatter the books amongst the campus Yep That's not going to be very helpful or efficient for the student okay, okay, and the same thing goes with there's no classrooms You just have to find randomly okay where your professor is so it's a concentrated. Yes, it's so that so that There is a defa a define location for things to occur And once you're there the the machinery that's required whether it's machinery for detoxification or lipid synthesis or post-translational modification It's in the place that it needs to be for it to occur so it's location or convenience correct, but could it also be well There's also pH differences enzymes and things that can damage and affect so a good example of that is the lysosome So if you were just to release that into the cell which is sometimes either This is sometimes part of Apoptosis oh yeah, so when the when the trees for when the leaves fall off the trees in autumn No, I mean well kind of definition of apoptosis. I just mean if you wanted to if the cell needs to be killed Yeah, it could just release lysosome all enzymes within its own cell or even the Smooth ER which is sometimes full of calcium will just release the calcium intracellally Yeah, and that leads to that apoptosis process So if you were to not have that then the cells necessarily wouldn't function well just dropped now just before we move on to the specifics I've got some a few other figures for you all right When you look at this university, which is the cell. Yep Um What what percentage of it do you think are the campus grounds? So this is what is this part of the cell? A cytoplasm. Yeah, yeah, so what percentage of the cell is cytoplasm? Oh, okay, um both Cells are three-dimensional So they're a lot because it's like a ball or a round ish Now I should say that this huge volume inside this one. I'm reading. Yeah, it's just from a hepatocyte So it's not necessarily a true cell. Oh, okay. How do you? Do you know I mean though like if it's wouldn't work as a red blood cell or a bone cell? I would say 99.9% no, I need 54% what yeah 54% of a liver cell. Yeah Is cytoplasm. What's the rest? Oh all the organelles now But the cytoplasm is the organelles. Do you mean cytozole? Cytozole. Yeah, you say cytozole. You said cytoplasm. All right, because I thought you meant everything inside. Oh, okay 54% I would have said technically that's exactly what I would have said and there's technically only one of them One of what one cytozole one cytozole. Oh, cytozole's just fluid. That's right. That's right But what's your next organ now for? Let's go to the library. What percentage of the university campuses a library? Okay, he's just let me just clarify just in case you're mixing your terms. Are you saying the volume inside of the nucleus? What percentage? What volume make up of the total? Oh, I would say Five five to 10% yeah, six percent. Okay. Good work. Not bad. Not bad. Now generally speaking there's only one nucleus in most cells, right? Yeah, but not all cells have like a skeletal muscle have multiple because that's important for them to grow and divide. Yeah. So Next organelle. Okay, mitochondria. Okay. What percentage depends on the cell? That's right Where a liver cell he'll Live a cell because I know a cardiac muscle cell because I'm delivering this next week has the most 30% yeah, 30% of its mass or This is going to have its volume is mitochondria There's less than that. Well, okay You're 22% yeah, okay. I'm doing okay. So that's percentage all right. So what are number then? Just because most of these are going to be one you only have one of these. Oh, yeah, but what do I want to conjure? Yeah, because they're they're based Let's go cardiac cell how many mitochondria in a cardiac muscle cell? Okay. They're really when I when I Looked into this early this morning. I'd probably say the cardiac myocyte appears to have the most mitochondria out of any cell type Yeah, I'll probably say each cardiac muscle cell has Oh, I don't want to go too big. Let's say 500 million no, no, no, okay. That's too big then. I did that on purpose just to test you one million not even close Okay, it's a couple thousand couple thousand. Okay, mitochondria. Purcell. Yeah, okay. All right That's less than I thought so mitochondria A little bit yeah, why it's silly silly guys mitochondria and hepatocytes 1500 also 15 to 1700 right okay Any other interest? No, let's let's leave it there. All right. Is anything else you want to just buy number? No Unless you've got something interesting that you can keep going Golgi kind of they put that in with the rough. Okay, so and that's about 10 percent Okay, that makes sense, but there would be more in the so we're talking liver here liver Yeah, liver's gonna have more of the smooth endoplasmic reticulum. So I bet six percent Yes, wow, but 10 percent for both rough and Golgi makes sense makes sense All right, and then you have the the ones that kind of Would be for clean up a landscaping so that would be the endosomes the lies of zones the peroxamones They would tiny one percent small in volume, but a lot in number Oh, yeah, in the hundreds in the hundreds all right, but they make up what percentage? Yeah, one percent. Okay. Yeah, make sense Well there you go. Thank you. No, that's good because I think it gives people a mental image as to the quantity volume Number, you know, all that type of stuff. All right. I want to start with the Cell membrane. No, the cell. I'm going to talk about how do we even construct a cell, right? Uh, and we need to let everyone know that the cell is comprised of a phospholipid bilayer, right? And so the phospholipid bilayer is this double membrane structure. Yeah, uh, made up of pretty much phospholipids Uh, now phospholipids and the membrane is both Water-like in and water-hating very true. What's the term for that? Hydro Vobic and then water meaning both But uh, and for and for and for pathic. Yeah, and for pathic which like comes from amphibian which can means to do both Oh, I didn't even think about that. So yeah, and for pathic. No, you I didn't brought an animal thing until Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. Um, all right, so it's we've got phospholipids. Right? So if you draw a phospholipid up It's got this head the circular head and these two tails So the head is the phosphate, right? And the tails are gonna be this fatty acid tail So phosphate and glycerol which you could that's kind of the head and neck. Yes, and then the tails being the fatty acid correct And so if you think about it, phosphate is charged. So phosphate is pretty much uh We've got phosphorous, right? Which is an at an element on the periodic table Surrounded by oxygen and the oxygen has a whole bunch of there's a number of oxygen surrounding this phosphate and then negatively charged That's the head so phosphate head negatively charged and in biology You need to remember that if something has a charge associated with it It's going to love to interact with water. Okay, because water being h2o To hydrogen one oxygen the hydrogen is slightly positively charged the oxygen is slightly negatively charged So it loves to interact with positive and negatively charged things So can we call that polar now? You can call it polar Yeah, and that's going to be important a little bit soon when we talk about walking go through the membrane Yes, yes, so polar substances are going to love water A couple of charge substances. Yeah, so it's about seven to ten nanometers thick What is the cell membrane? Okay. Well wait, wait before we get to that because we need to talk about How many phospholipids make up the membrane, right? What in total just okay, are you mean just the thickness of it? Well, we haven't finished with a phospholipid I just spoke about the head The tail is now so they kind of look like a two tailed sperm Or tadpole it will say tadpole right because the sperm's another cell. Yeah, so let's do it's got a phosphate head It's charged the tail fatty acids so fat just think fat double fatty acid tail fat loves fat fat doesn't love water So the tail is hydrophobic the head loves water hydrophilic So if you've got this one molecule of something Where one part of it wants to be around water, but the other one doesn't Keep that in mind if I were to then fill a bucket up with all of these molecules And pour that bucket into a swimming pool What's going to happen is that all of those polar heads those hydrophilic phosphate Heds want to be exposed to the water But the tails the fatty acid tails. They want to be as far away from the water as possible What how can They arrange to themselves in a way in which the head is exposed to the water and the tail is not Well, you bring two tails together And leave the heads on the outside and the two tails come together But then you go but the sides of the tail are going to be exposed to the water Okay, then let's be like you know when you see the action movies where There's a group of heroes and they're fighting a huge army They have to kind of back onto each other where they've got the backs to each other in the big circle That's right. And that's right in a part of that circle is Hydrophobic yeah, and they're facing outwards which is the water component or the Fosfer lipid and so the phosphate head. Yes, so what you end up having is as the fatty acid tails come together They then joy so you've now got two of these molecules together You then have another one come together and another one come together another one and they all connect where the fatty acid tails Side by side and they form with this big circle and now what you have is the fatty acid tails are only exposed to other fatty Acetals and the hydrophilic heads Exposed to water on the inside of this structure and on the outside of this structure So now what we've got is a membrane bound structure with fluid inside and fluid outside And the right parts of the molecule are exposed to the right thing. Yeah, does that make sense? Yeah So it's my point in saying this is it spontaneously forms so You don't need this creative design to create a cell membrane It will spontaneously form because it's the most efficient structure to be made in this solution That's saying that there are organelles within the cell. Yeah, that's job And I think the smoothie is one of them that have to constantly kind of repair the cell membrane by sending up these kind of phospholipid yes to continually keep the perimeter of the university Exactly right exactly right. Yeah, so you know Once the walls of the university are made you don't keep those builders there forever right so And I fully can see that you don't just take a dump truck with bricks and just tip it Into the site into the grounds and then it spontaneously forms a perimeter But you do need like you see grounds keepers or somebody there to maintain the integrity of it And that's the smooth endoplasmic reticulum because it synthesizes the fat soluble products Like phospholipids and we'll get back to the smooth endoplasmic reticulum shortly, but it to maintain it. Yeah, now the thing about this Layer how thick did you say the phospholip so it's we call it a bilayer because there's two phospholipits together right? So how thick is it seven to ten nanometers? Nanometers so remember a red blood cell is about seven to ten micro meters. So a thousand times bigger Yeah, so a red and it makes sense because a red blood cell has this phospholipid outlay around it and actually An example I'm going to use for a cell that its function is Highly dependent on the cell membrane. Yeah, is a red blood cell. Oh, okay. You won't do that now. I can do it now if you want so a red blood cell Is shaped what's it shaped like like a donut a donut, but without the hole Yes, so it's like a it's a disc yeah And you put your thumb imprint into the middle so by a concave Disco site. Oh, okay either so everyone knows now everyone's got that by concave discocyte. Yeah, so in their head So a red blood cell is about eight microns in length and in thickness. It's about two microns. Yeah, okay now it's not like a A dinner plate. It kind of caves in in the middle, but doesn't create a hole. Yeah Now this shape is highly important because it needs to almost Squeeze in half it can fold in half. Yeah to fit down the small capillaries. Yes Now if it loses its ability to do this It won't be able to perform that function. You know, that's not the only reason why it's that shape. Do you know the other reason? Well, it's it's also got a very high surface area to volume ratio. Yeah, which means it has a great capacity to Exchange diffuse. Well, it's good it gases in and out. Well Yes Think about okay if the red blood cells are ball. Yeah, right. Which is where I'm going to get to the disease of it So if red blood cell because of its cell membrane loses its ability to hold its patency of that shape shape and becomes a ball Which is called spherocytosis. Yep, then it becomes problematic and it can still obviously diffuse It's oxygen and carbon dioxide, but it becomes inefficient and probably gets killed off early Okay, so think about this and hence a form of anemia and the and the reason why is because if you've got a ball perfectly circular and You were to fill it with oxygen The only oxygen that we get exchanged on the outside is the oxygen closest to the wall of the ball The oxygen deep in the middle. It's got too far to diffuse But if you then take this ball and you squish it like a red blood cell Regardless of where it's where the oxygen sits in the red blood cell. It's the same distance To the surface or the membrane, right? So it's not just the fact that this shape allows for it to be flexible But it also allows for gas diffusion to occur most efficiently, which is a beautiful structure. Yeah So sometimes I refer to your body shape being this Bio-concave I'll take that as a compliment. So your wife says so certain protein that by concave discosite. Oh, yeah So that proteins within Just underneath the cell membrane of the red blood cell, but also associated with proteins in the red blood cell which we haven't got to yet Uh, so the proteins in the cell membrane of the red blood cell if you have problems and I think it's called spectrum I think that's what it's called spectrum Um, spectrum, spectrum. So name of the protein spectrum spectrum. Okay. What does spectrum do it's a protein? Yeah, it's a protein, but if in certain genetic um Disorders disorders where there's a problem with the construction of this protein network. Yep. The red blood cell loses the ability to hold its bike and concaveness So shouldn't you and then it becomes more sphero? So this is cytoskeletal architecture. Yeah, but it's also associated with the membrane itself because what we haven't discussed is that probably in terms of the composition of of a plasma membrane the vast majority of it in terms of component is protein Yes, so more of the Cell membrane is protein than it is actually also a lipid. Yes, and that makes it quite rigid. Yeah, and so what the cell membrane needs to do is implant cholesterol. Yeah, within it to help maintain fluidity fluidity. Yes. So are they not too much? Yes, but not enough Yeah, it can't be so fluid that it feels apart when it's in contact with other lipid soluble substances It just merges and pulls apart like you said and I think also with temperature though, right if you get too hot The membrane will start pulling apart. Yep, and then you might have um transport issues like things can cross it maybe easier and it shouldn't And if you get too cold, it becomes too contractile. Just like putting a fat in the fridge. Yeah, it gets solid. That's right And so the cholesterol in there makes it fluid. Yes, so that's important. So in embedded in this plasma membrane We have proteins and we have cholesterol So about 13% of the cell membrane is cholesterol. Yes, and and simply that cholesterol is basically just there for the fluidity But the protein is there one for strontal integrity but also it can be receptors. They can be transporters They can do a whole bunch of things. Yeah, and that's goes That then goes to the function of the plasma membrane with a red blood cell. Yeah, you have these proteins that are probably I don't know if they're in in tag is it integral? It goes goes through the whole length of it. That's right They may just be on the I think they're integral that sits within the membrane, but also Communicates with proteins underneath so in the intracellular side. Yeah, that allows For the membrane of a red blood cells to be held in that bioconcave manner. Yeah, now it's important to note that this would be my assumption here Proteins how are they made in the cell Proteins are made are because DNA within the nucleus is transcribed into RNA Leaves the nucleus and then is translated from RNA into proteins by ribosomes Yes, there are the three floating ribosomes or ribosomes in the rough endoplasmic reticular right and the red blood cell doesn't have any of these Right, so it can't make new proteins correct. So these proteins. Yes, we just spoke about they're for life They're for life, but they're going to the life of the red blood cell. They're going to start to run out on quality, right sure So there's been used to carry oxygen and release oxygen and carry carbon dioxide and release carbon dioxide It's so as a red blood cell ages. Yeah, it loses stability to hold its bioconcave Yeah, so it becomes a bit like what I spoke about sphero shaped. Yes, and so it starts to become that happens now at around 120 days and then It is subjected to a personal a personal trainer. Oh, yeah, which explain mostly this blame the liver can do it and the kidneys to a degree and if it can't pass through that I don't know mesh work the ninja warrior. Yes, um Course, yep, the macrophages just kill it right So if I was watching into warrior and they were climbing up the wall and they fell into the water they get killed. Yeah, they get killed Yeah, macrophages Slices it in half the sharks in that water. It's all right recycles it. This is a separate podcast But just pulls it apart. Yeah, sends the important components to make more But the take-home point is red blood cells have a fairly short life if you want to listen to more of that We've got an episode on the YouTube we've got a video on the YouTube channel on Billy Rubin metabolism We've also got a podcast on Billy Rubin metabolism as well But let's get back to the cell membrane. Okay, now the cell membrane is a semi permeable membrane It will only allow certain things through Generally speaking, I say to my students that if it's large or charged it ain't getting through yeah Large is well, it's subject just in size. Yes, but it's subjective right? So what do I mean? I could say that you're large and I'm not large to a cell were both large But you know to for Beyonce in the world strongest man, you're not large. It's correct. So what is large? So when we're talking about the size of things that can get through the cell It's basically talking about just proteins and cell the things that are the size of proteins and cells Generally can and moly mostly molecules can't get through but would they be more to do with the Do you think that's the size or maybe the charge of it? So like say glucose. Yes, is it the size or is it does it have a charge that Repels? That's a good question when it comes to glucose. I think it's the So no, because you could have structures that are fat soluble. Yes, like no, it's I think vitamins that soluble vitamins Yes, that can also some hormones That can slide through the cell. Yeah. Um, that's a good question. I don't know um I'm going to check into that okay now but When it comes to charged what we're referring to here is that A positive or negative so an ion being charged out of more element Isn't large no by definition and so it could go through in accordance to its size but because it's got a charge It's okay for the phosphate heads. They're like yeah come in come in come in But then once it gets to the fatty tail They're like what the hell are you doing here? We don't like charges get the hell out. Yeah, so it repels it When it comes to glucose, it's the size. Okay, right Now when it comes to what size Doesn't the membrane let through? I'll let you know that in one second So do you want to do when you go through the things that can get through? Yes, all right So the things that can get through a pleasant membrane yeah firstly There's not really an auditor but I'll just build 500 Dalton's The membrane doesn't let molecules larger than 500 Dalton's through Okay, I don't know what a Dalton is in terms of scale Okay, just like size Like it's not like a length measurement. No, no, it's a chemical structure measurement But keep going so the things that can go through the membrane very easily is like small things. Yep Good example would be oxygen carbon dioxide. So gases gases yeah Then we can have Still small molecules, but it's a bit harder to get through not as it doesn't diffuse as easily as one Dalton Just enter out is approximately equal the mass of one proton Which is a hydrogen ion, right? So it's about the mass of a hydrogen ion. So 500 Dalton's it's pretty large Can't get through Okay, okay Um, so a small actually this small Polar molecule can get through. Yep. Being water. Yep. So water can squeeze its way through a cell membrane But we think it's through channels not right. No way it can get through. Yeah, but it's very slow Okay, now where you have cells that really need to push water through quickly. Yeah, that's where you have the aquaporins Okay, which looks like kidney kidney. Yep. As an example or Um, I'm not sure about the small intestines because that then comes to think it's aquaporins What I was going to talk about later, but I can do it here when we talk about water absorption From your small intestines where yeah, a lot of it would occur um free water Absorption is not overly effective on its own. Yeah, but if you have other Molecules That are crossing the membrane It can bring water with it and that's where it's the idea of having a Isotonic fluid opposed to a hypotonic fluid. It's also how diarrhea works. Osmotic diarrhea. It's opposite Yes, yeah, if you've got if you're ingesting a whole bunch of milk proteins that you can't digest So the lactose intolerant Proteins are charged for osmosis is gone the other way So you got all these charge things in the intestines and it's pulling water through but yeah, the intestines do have aquaporins So probably works through those I've also read previously that The water does move yeah, I think through cells, but only through Porons well, I think I don't think they know I think it has to because that's just osmosis, right? Yeah So I think it has to move through but it's just overly quick The other thing about or do you have something else about membrane? No, I'll just I'll just move it up the Chain of what's going on? Okay, okay, then we have large molecules. Yeah, but they're non-polar So this would be fat soluble So you could have yeah, certain things that are quite large, but they can move again as I said this could be Stereo-hormones or vitamins. Yeah fat soluble vitamins. They can cross Then you go into the bigger ones like so Large and charged. Yes, not happening glucose would be example And then you have all the charge stuff which would be the ions? Yes So you can have a large non-polar molecule so a large fat soluble molecule can get through Right because it doesn't have a charge And it's like okay, let's do it let's move our way through and then those steroids that's how they work They have to get into the cell to work right steroids work by changing transcription So they need to get to the nucleus. Yeah, so they don't just have to move through one Membrane they're going to move through another membrane because the nucleus Membrane and we'll get there in a second another important point we need to understand about membranes is that All the cells of the body have a charge difference across their membranes. That's super important so you've got these you've got dissolved in the extra cellular fluid outside the cell and the intercellular fluid Substances solutes and a number of these solutes have charges and these are mostly ions sodium potassium magnesium calcium chloride and so forth But there's also proteins as well Now you've got different numbers and quantities inside and outside and the reason wise because there are pumps That establish this gradient. So what important pump embedded in the Across the membrane of every cell of our body is the sodium potassium ATPase pump where it uses ATP which is energy and throws three positive sodium outside the cell and two positive potassium inside the cell Establishing a gradient a concentration gradient of chemicals with most sodium outside most potassium inside But also a charge gradient where there's three positive things outside two positive things inside In addition to that you've got other channels and other pumps that continue to establish Gradients and charge chemical and charge gradients Establishing a charge difference across that membrane So just outside the cell of the cells of our body it's slightly more positive compared to the inside And this is what we call the resting membrane potential and the re what do you think this is important? Why do we need what are the cells of our body need to have a charge difference? So is it all cells or just no it's all cells it's all cells It's just the excitable cells have leveraged this charge difference for significant functional benefit Okay, because I thought That in some ways cells generally like to keep the charge pretty much the same so electrostatic charge they try to what's out? What's in but all cells have a sodium potassium pump? So they were all now the resting membrane potential is going to be different for different cells right? The excitable cells are going to have relatively significant resting membrane potentials Because the whole purpose of it for them No, an excitable cell is a cell that has the capacity to do something Muscles of the capacity to contract neurons of the capacity to communicate Indicrant cells of the capacity to release chemicals So at rest they don't do any of those things But there's a charge difference and if you change that charge difference So for example, I said the outside of the membrane slightly positive and the inside's slightly negative compared to the outside If you make that inside or positive by throwing sodium in or calcium in or magnesium in But mostly sodium and calcium You've now triggered a difference and that difference can lead to a whole range of intercellular changes Which can either tell a muscle to contract tell a neuron to send a signal or tell a hormone Sorry, or tell a gland like let's say the pancreatic beta cells to release insulin And so that's really important why they've established these charge differences So that's important yeah, and it's it's amazing because it's a charge right And we're because we've got 30 trillion cells or let's say 36 trillion cells All with quite large surface areas or membrane areas We have 30 million volts per meter Of electrical charge Of in our body sounds like it sounds like a lightning bolt per meter So we have a lightning bolts worth of charge Established Across our body or across the membranes of the cells of our body one lightning bolt per meter. Yeah, wow Isn't that insane? I'm sure some animals have utilized that for their own benefit like eels Zapping. Yes. Yes Zap so Anything else about membranes? I'll look the only thing I want to say big But I don't want to get caught in the depth of this because we I'm pretty sure we've done this in some shape of form before Is just the different ways that things can transport across. Yeah, but generally speaking You have things that can just diffuse across. Yeah, therefore they're just following their concentration gradient Yeah, high to low But then you can have proteins which are generally going to be carriers Which could be either just a portal that opens like An aquaporin or more of a channel which kind of changes shape to facilitate the movement. So you might have So an example again, let's go the small intestine where you may want to transport sodium or glucose across The cell So from the intestine lumen side through the cell into the blood. Yeah It had to do that movement. It has to have this protein that kind of changes shape and grabs the sodium and glucose and pulls it across And that would be caught a facilitated diffusion. Yeah, so it's still diffusion still going from a high to a low But it needs help from a protein to move it across the membrane and then you have Pumps which is moving across the membrane, but against the gradient and example you gave was the ATPase pump So it needs energy to do this. Yeah, so it's moving it against its gradient. So you're actually pushing sodium out Of the cell or potassium in and that's going against where the majority is And then you can go to the big transports where you're bringing huge amounts of things into a cell That's generally referred to as endocytosis which could be mediated through receptors or kind of just pinching off a whole bit of membrane and Porn it in like a endosome And that's obviously requiring energy because it's such a big process Or the opposite where you are pushing it out But that's transport that's exocytosis. So these are different transport methods that the membrane can use to bring things across it But it's important to note that these you have differences like diffusion diffusion but with facilitation and then you have so basically Membrane transport can be passive requires no energy and it's going to get it Whatever the substances will get across by going down its concentration gradient either it Does it directly through the membrane or it does it using something to help it like a channel for example Or if it goes against or up its concentration gradient It's active transport and requires energy and that could be energy in the form of ATP Or energy in the form of hijacking some other substance going down and then intestine is a good example So when you're using facilitated diffusion and you're putting glucose and sodium across the cell water can jump on board with it And get a free ride and that's a good example of how you can hydrate In the small intestine it's more efficiently and that's where you see things like the sports drinks or the hydrolytes Yes, which they use electrolytes to do the mood sugar To bring the water more efficiently across the membrane Yes All right, so that's the membrane The only thing I will add sure is that as an ad Well you basically said it Another cell that really needs its membrane to work as a function Is like you mentioned the neurons or the muscles Which is highly dependent on you changing the electrochemical charge Yeah, for it to do its job Yeah, and so a neuron The long process which we call the axon is just membrane And it just sends that electrochemical charge difference down the membrane which is Basically being used for a signal. Yes, that's right. That's right So that's membrane done. So we go into the cell now. So we have defused into the cell So we're going down our concentration gradient through the membrane into the cell Let's first start with the nucleus. So this is the library This is the library. So the nucleus is a really important site Well, let's first just talk about let's just quickly talk about the nucleus itself right Evolution on earth has been punctuated by a couple of like very special events So like going from water to land Or developing wings the evolution of wings right Probably the most important thing to happen in evolution is the evolution of a nucleus And this is so important right because if you look at the organizational hierarchy of life do you remember how it's categorized the hierarchy of life starts with domain Mm-hmm domain kingdom phylum class order family So this microphone's not picking up my family family genus species right Demains the first one. It's the the top when it comes to the hierarchy of life It's the way we broadly classify all of life and when we look at it We pretty much break it up into whether something does have a nucleus or doesn't If it does have a nucleus we call it eukaryotic What's the you mean good? Okay, so and good carry Carried is obviously chromosome is that not or something? It's not not so it means good nut So eukaryotic means good nut and prokaryotic means before nut before nut right the nut is referring to the nucleus So obviously it's important to note here that prokaryotic cells like a bacteria Yep, although they don't have a nucleus. They still have DNA. They do or RNA bacteria, but they Don't having a nucleus so an organ I'll just for that like that's right like eukaryotic cells do Yeah, so bacteria don't have a nucleus. They're prokaryotic But their DNA is also different. It's circular Unlike ours, which is linear we'll get to that in a second So the nucleus is a membrane bound compartment within the cell like we've spoken about that contains the genetic material for the organisms now If you look at a virus and a bacteria that genetic materials sort of just like Left all over the place right like a teenager's bedroom. It's just sprawled all over the place But that's fine because the cell itself is the whole organism Right, but for us we got 30 trillion of them. We need it to be efficient and effective So we've chucked it into its own compartment to keep it is that also just the size of it as well It's the side. It's to keep it protected It's to keep it localized because we're constantly transcribing translating Um, and so would a bacteria wouldn't that? Yeah, but a bacteria doesn't have as many genes as we do And remember that each cell is going to transcribe DNA differently in our body. Yeah, sure Bacteria is going to transcribe translate the same itself constantly, right? It's right um So the question is why would cells want to separate the genetic material out from the rest of it and we spoke about that Yeah, it's helps Regulate gene expression. Yeah, and that's the most important thing now When in our evolution did we have? Did we gain a nucleus right? It was about 2.7 billion years ago. So a long time ago, but a very important thing um So How did we get a nucleus is the question which a lot of we don't know the answer because we don't have the best hypothesis Well firstly, we don't have fossil evidence of a nuclear of a nucleus because it's too small Um, so of all the theories There's two main theories. There's the endosymbiotic theory and the autogenous theory So the endosymbiotic theory is that we basically just gained the nucleus from some other free living cell of virus Similar to getting the mitochondria right Autogenous is that we made it ourselves by like blebbing our cell membrane Into you know, you spoke about endosythosis like blebbing that cell membrane in and then it remained as its own thing And we just stuck the DNA in there okay, so there's nothing with like a pro Neuculus so there's no Current organism that has kind of a I like it. It's immediate. No. No. That's exactly right So the nuclear membrane made up of the nuclear envelope. So that's again a double membrane. Yeah, that encloses the whole organelle Similar to the phospholipid bilayer Um, and it has pause now it has around three thousand to four thousand of these Paws and they can selectively transport molecules in and out and the reason why these paws are important is because that's how we get the All right right in and out the mRNA that in analogous out. It's just out. Okay Well, that's not true because we can have RNA come back in and Change the DNA. So be both in and out of the nucleus. Yeah So the nucleolus is and another separate structure inside the nucleus uh When you google or even look up in textbooks, it's function. It's sort of like Yeah, it does some stuff, but what we're not really sure Some regulation based like it regulates, but what it regulates. We don't know. It's not much. Okay, because I looked into the nucleolus Nothing to do with specifically ribosomes Um, the construction of ribosomes for the I think there was transcription process I think there was something I read about ribosomes But I can't remember to be honest. Okay, but I do remember that Uh, yeah, there's something to do with the ribosomes. So I got a question for you. Yes. How many so in the DNA Sorry in the nucleus is the DNA. Yep. Which is the code. Yep. That Codes for things. Yeah. Cool. And I will usually say proteins Yeah, but you're going to pull me up on that now because you'll say most of it doesn't yes Um, but am I still This is just something that I came across and we still safe by saying approximately The genes within your DNA would code for you know 10, 20,000 proteins. Oh, it's a far more than that. I'll say that we have about 20,000 genes But those genes would encode for at least double the amount of proteins. Okay. So this is coding Coding genes But the but I came across something like one Percent one and a half percent are non-coding. So majority of our base pairs of DNA. Yep. Don't do Coding. Yeah, they used to call it junk DNA And now I think they might call it dark DNA. So it's a bit like dark matter of the universe. We don't really know exactly But we know it's there. Yes. We don't know exactly now. So my question to you. Yeah. So A number that I came across is our DNA human DNA is approximately 3.2 billion Base pairs. Yes of DNA. Yes But then you could go to say a fruit fly which has Um, I don't know a thousand to 10,000 cells. Yep. So not many compared to our 36 trillion But it has almost the same amount of coding genes. There you go So it's interesting that why I'm thinking that the length of our DNA Is equivalent to the complexity of the organism? No, not necessarily But it's just interesting that we have this huge amount of just Number yeah, but we have almost the same genes of coding. Yeah between A like a fruit fly and a organism. So the nuclear tides are the same length But they wouldn't have the same number of genes that right that coding genes Okay, I'm confident they wouldn't not quite as much, but they said that You know, I'll share a lot of it. Yes. Oh absolutely. I mean we share something like 50% of our coding genes with bananas Yeah, so does that mean just like a banana? So does that just then mean That of the genes that we express yes, we have very similar proteins that are made yeah between Us and a banana most proteins that out That are transcribed and translated Regulatory for life. Yeah, right The rest are those that provide us the tweaks. Yeah, and I think that make us And the individuals that we are and I think that then becomes the dark DNA, right? Well the dark DNA is all doing this regulatory role, which not necessarily codes for a Approaching outcome, but it regulates the way that the gene is possibly, but the dark DNA could also have been useful once once and then just and now right because remember if you've got if you take your dean Okay, so the firstly DNA is in the nucleus 3.2 billion base pairs so base pairs are talking about the nuclear times that make up the DNA in the form the alphabet Yes, the ACG into adenine cytosine thiamine guanine right there the the flavors the basically the letters of the alphabet that we use to code everything Instead of 26 letters of our English alphabet there's four, but it's enough to create a human being right? So there is information stored in the combination of these nuclear types So you've got 3.2 billion in this big long stretch per cell except our blood cells, which we know make up 80% 90% of our body right, but in every other cell Now they are very long. It's around about two meters long 3.2 billion base pairs. Am I saying so it's almost you so it needs to be twisted and turned and compacted as tight as possible and we can pack them into what we call chromosomes and that's the way it sits until it needs to be transcribed and what are the hair? What are the hair rolls that rolls onto before it goes into chromosome? Well, they're called histones. So these are proteins that Basically rapid. I wouldn't call it hair roller because it makes it sound like the DNA is wrapped around the histones But the histones are more so wrapped around the DNA, okay, and so they're like clips that sort of hold it into place Really jams it in. Oh, yeah. Well, you can do two meters of DNA into a nucleus, which is inner skill right and so Firstly that The DNA is just like the books, right? Mm-hmm. There's information in there And it's stored in a leather-bound cover. That's DNA. So it's it's kept safe, right? But If the DNA Isn't useful. It doesn't you can't create proteins from DNA It needs to be transcribed and then translated So transcribe from DNA into RNA specifically mRNA, which is done by the professors at university Well, well going from RNA to proteins. Yes, or RNA to amino acids. Yes, but going from DNA to RNA We need transcriptional machinery. So we need something that transcribes it into something that's more useful Now before we talk more about the the DNA stuff that you would brought up. It's important to state that I want to ask you a question Why don't we just have RNA Right, if ultimately all we need is RNA why don't we store all of our genetic material as RNA instead of DNA my guess would be I'll attempt two things RNA well you'd need Heat more because it would kind of You'd have to have it all like in small bits and you have to jam that in To fit into the cell, but you could have it You could just have the DNA as RNA but packaged the same way. Okay. All right, so I'm gonna dismiss that I think the mRNA compared to the DNA is a lot Less stable so it would degrade quicker so you wouldn't be able to Retain it in there and you'd just lose it all the time. That's that's the reason That's exactly right and I can give you a great example as someone who has done genetic research if I take DNA And put it in a tube and leave it on my lab bench and I take RNA and Leave it in a tube on lab bench That RNA if I come back the next day. It's all disintegrated. It's gone. It's useless. Can't do anything with it That DNA will stay for another couple of thousand years. Oh, well, so it's very stable extremely stable Not millions of years hence why we can't get DNA from dinosaurs But thousands of years because we can get DNA from dead organisms and humans from thousands of years But RNA it disintegrates immediately but Now we've got the DNA present now you were asking about I can't remember what you asked because I just went off on a tangent, but you were talking about 3.2 billion nucleotrons Um, oh, yeah, that's right. So the DNA That the smallest readable portion of DNA that can be translated into a protein is called a gene But what happens is we have the transcribers that transcribe the DNA into the mRNA But the thing is that they're going to transcribe a bunch of Dark DNA stuff that's useless right and that needs to be chopped out and so they tend to be called ironically introns So the things we take out are called introns right axons saying that's right. Whatever's remaining of the axons So basically it's almost like you know, you're copying from a textbook just like a student would and you know This whole chapter that you're like oh, I don't need to know the whole chapter. I just need the important parts And so you do your study stuff and bold and you basically just right yeah all the stuff that has been highlighted Right did did did any chop out the stuff that you don't need so the stuff chopped out introns the stuff that's kept Snap together axons that's now your mRNA molecule. That's now exported out through those holes through those pores those three to four thousand pores interestingly One gene and this is where I said to you, you know, you can have 20,000 genes, but you can have fun more proteins Even though a one gene trans can transcribe one protein the way that you read the gene And the way that the introns and axons Taken in and kept taken out or kept in can change the gene. Okay, right And so you can have one gene that's read different ways creating multiple proteins. Right. You're right. That's common That henceway you can have more proteins compared to genes So once you've got this mRNA molecule and it's been exported out We need to do something with it Is there any more you want to say about DNA or the nucleus? Okay, cuz we're Yeah, we've got a lot of organisms. Yeah, we're okay So the mRNA now leaves the nucleus goes through those pores. Yeah, and now goes into the well, you know A lot of people would call the factory. Yep. Now analogy. It's the classroom Yes, the rough endopause of a rough ER because the reads and it's called rough is because it's got rubber zones Inbet it all the way through it. Yes, embedded in the membrane. Yeah, yep So then see them so they're exposed. So now when we When this mRNA comes into the rough ER. Yep. We are now translating. So we're changing form Into um, so from our RNA forming to now a protein form or an amino acid form, right? Yes. That's right And so the rough endopasement reticulum is the result of an invagination of the plasma membrane while that's a theory that that because it's another membrane bound structure, right? um They think that the reason why the rough endopasement reticulum occurred was to maintain a constant surface area to volume ratio So it's invaginated in and now we need to create more surface area for more things to happen, right? Um now These Folds help translate that RNA to amino acids like you said Um, but it does other functions which we'll get to in a second. So When we need to take that mRNA molecule they bind to the ribosomes on the surface of the rough endopasement reticulum And they can be taken inside to the lumen not always, but they can Uh, and they can that's where translation can occur, but simply put what happens is The ribosomes will take the mRNA molecule which is now made up of those nuclear times ACG and you instead of a T so you're a cell instead of a thymine And it reads them three to time, which you call a codon, right? So it goes So basically when it reads a C you That's a word which means something and the meaning is an amino acid. So it goes oh, I see you that means blot amino acid And the ribosome goes in grabbing it uses another RNA molecule TRNA to help stick an amino acid on then it reads the next three. Hey, let's recruit another amino acid stick it on And it creates this pearl necklace of amino acids that it's now created And so now this is what's happening inside the rough endopasement reticulum You can now get modification Happening so the rough endopasement reticulum can modify does it here does it here does it here but the golgi also do it Well, the golgi is mostly packaging and putting a stamp on the same where it needs to go But the rough endopas it can't do post-transport modifications correct Cripping from wrong here, but really the golgi is just a continuation of the rough. Yeah exactly right. It's the same kind of cisterna Uh More phology, right? It kind of looks like the cisterna, which is just these folds on top of each other looks kind of like a Hot air balloon that's just deflated on itself. Yeah, it does and I mean if you ever think about it It's sort of like if you run a company that makes t-shirts, right? You've got the factory inside the company That makes the t-shirts. That's the rough endopasement reticulum and then you've got the export department Which takes the t-shirts chucks them in boxes and puts a label and it's saying this one's going to China this one's going to You know Malaysia whatever it may be and that's going to be the golgi apparatus So once these proteins have been made within the rough endopasement reticulum They're either going to be destined for export out of the cell or to be turned into an integral protein that you mentioned earlier That goes the full length of the membrane. So the whole purpose of the rough endopasement reticulum translating mRNA into proteins or amino acids that fold into proteins is for export Ultimately to get out of the cell or to go into the cell membrane Does that make sense? Yeah, I think that's pretty much right so from my Look into the golgi. Yeah, the golgi will do some Post-translation or modifications. Yes, and some can be similar to the rough like like oscillation for Like sugar molecules onto it, which are like stickers that say what I really good example of that is Mano's That's right. That's a tough sugar. So mano six phosphate. Yeah, let's just say that's a sticker The golgi can put that sticker on the protein and that specifically Becomes the enzymes for lysosomes. Yes, that's a sticker That's specific for a lysosome enzyme Which then will go across to a separate organelle bound Organelle, which is a lysosomes and they're just filled with those enzymes which are the proteins. Yeah But there are other Other types of so we've finished with a rough ear and we call it noxone for the golgi Yeah, yeah pass it to the golgi So you could have certain proteins that are made that are designed to be Excreted as vesicles exported exported. All right. So these could be because it's not waste right True true. So if you were a A beta no wait. Yeah, a B cell B cell, which is a Yeah, they would have a lot of golgi associated with them and what they're producing particularly if they've differentiated By selection and a lot of smooth and rough end-of-puzzle reticulum because I need to make Yep, it's about plasma cells specifically. Yeah, they become plasma cells. Yeah And so the antibodies which are a protein have been selected for to fit in the antigen which could be microorganism or something else within the body and It needs to start and this is what plasma cells do as an immune cell is just keep pumping out They've to become antibody factories. Yeah, and so they just kind of Group these antibodies that they've made in Package them up and then just through exo-sotosis Pump them out and that because needs to have membrane kind of bound An energy that's a process that the golgi has to develop to kind of butt it off push it out and then it Releases outside the cell. Yeah, so so B cells Beeline for sounds like you said one of their offspring's are plasma cells and they're the antibody cranny ones And you're saying they've got huge amounts of rough end-of-puzzle reticula and golgi. Yeah, to make proteins and export proteins Right another so so then you can go so that's the exo-sototic Bessicles that the golgi plays a role with yeah, but then you also have secretory which are more like Neurons. Yeah, so neurons Would have golgi that are associated with packaging or end-o All-mone-producing one of the What's the word endocrine endocrine? Yeah, so like the beta cells in your pancreas They would also have golgi and a golgi is instead of packaged them into end-o-sototic Bessicles. Yeah, they are more packaged them into secretory vesicles And their release, which is now in the beta cell going to be insulin That's dependent on a charge change, right? Yeah, which then happens across the membrane of the beta cell Which is governed by glucose which is going to change energy and potassium and then I think finally calcium Which causes that vesicle to be secreted and then insulin goes into the blood Yeah, but neurotransmitters work the same way kind of held within the cell As a bundle but when the signal has been given then they'll get released out. So you say this is Because the golgi has been able to create these bundles. Yeah, so I think so the so when it comes to something like acetylcholine Ready to be released from a cholinergic neuron The vesicles that the neurotransmit is sitting within at the axon terminal Have been Yeah, I'm not because I assume so But there's also a lot of acetylcholine that it can be just re-packaged it up after Uptake do you think that re-packaging is happening? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know Would make sense, right Anymore about the golgi the only other one which I mentioned is the lysosome. Oh, yeah So they're producing those secretory enzymes and an example of a golgi that has been modified for function would be the acrozyme on the sperm So they are the golgi and they have kind of Become specific to the function of that sperm which is to create the proteins the enzymes that will Ultimately eat through the out of egg. Oh, yes To get through to be able to then put the DNA originating information into the egg itself One thing I forgot to say about the nucleus because you're talking about Cells that have large amounts of or absent of to highlight their function right of of rough in a pleasant reticulum and golgi Because you spoke about the B cells and the plasma cells having heaps, right? Is that you mentioned earlier that skeletal muscle have multiple nuclei right generally a cell of a body will have one But skeletal muscle have multiple and the reason why which you spoke about earlier is because The nucleus is ultimately responsible from the proteins that we make and that skeletal muscle is Filled with proteins specifically contractile proteins actinamysin which is a top of cytoskeleton which we'll get to yeah Which if you stress a muscle cell out by basically saying how you need to contract more contract more so you're exposing it to a resisted force Resistance training It's going to trigger the nucleus to go I need to make more proteins And if you do that a lot you need to make a lot of proteins So it would be beneficial for a skeletal muscle cell to have more nuclei And that's what they do they can be multi-nucleated which is to the benefit of the muscle cell So it can create more contractile proteins actinamysin All right, so we've done Marta we've done nucleus we've done rough in a positive reticulum we've done golgi What about smooth end a positive reticulum should we start talking about that? So smooth really is just a continuation of The rough in a way. It's not really necessarily a distinct organelle the only difference really is it's Absent it's absence of ribosomes. Yes, and changes its functions significantly right So it then has certain functions where it can instead of the rough ER process in proteins The smooth ER processes lipids and so yes lipid synthesis which then can have a function within the cell so these becomes Maybe detoxification within hepatocytes so they have those enzymes which are important for changing certain structures within molecules that the liver releases or sorry receives And we know that that's a function of the liver We know that within pharmacology for instance the the phyma kinetics to the way that the drug moves through the body The metabolism of the drug which usually means it's being turned off Or to be excreted is performed by enzymes within the liver. Yeah, and so a lot of that would probably take place in the In the smooth ER things like phase. I think phase two detoxification. Yeah, phase two metabolism. So it's like cytochrome P450 enzymes and so forth. Yeah, yeah, and so by inhibiting those functions or speeding them up Can change the way that the drugs are metabolizing your body. Yeah, absolutely So you said lipid synthesis and detoxification two functions. Yeah, so people are lipid synthesis Well, so you can have cells that are processing fats. Yeah Which could be Socretary cells. Yeah, so this could be in the gonads where you produce and things like Androgens testosterone that Lipids and fats are different Right. It's like lipids are fat soluble on that we don't make Uh Lipid-based hormones from fats Mavic cholesterol, which isn't a fat, but lipid soluble but fat soluble So it's just only because I have been corrected in the past before my people that they're going to know they're not fat They're fat soluble, okay, but they are lipids and lipids include fats, but also include cholesterol Okay, and so it's it's synthesizers lipids which allows for us to cover more So the best time to use is lipids here lipids if you want to include cholesterol-based things like hormones Because a lot of the hormones are cholesterol-based, but not they're not fatty acid-based, right? So Cells within the gonads. Yeah, that would be producing. So if it's the testes. Yeah, these would be strong the Androgens I'm just trying to think myself not necessarily, but the um Oh the system-taculous. Oh, sorry. You're talking about the latex cells. Yeah, so they're testosterone So my assumption would be that they would have a lot of smooth AR And then within the adrenal cortex. Yep. You're going to have also cells that produce Lipid-based. Yep Our hormones so they would also be important to to mention. Yeah But then there's an interesting Cell that has modified the smooth AR and that again we can go to Muscle cells for this right and this is more to do with calcium. Yeah, so the Smooth endoplasmic reticulum in muscle cell we call the saccoplasmic reticulum, which is what if that flesh if that is Specifically for skeletal or is cardiac Well, yeah, it's also called sac reticulum. Yes, that's right. Yep They hold calcium stores so Most calcium is held extracellally, right But we hold calcium inside muscle cells as a quick pull Because without calcium muscles don't contract right calcium is the key to unlock Trapponin so that now you've got the binding science factor of mice and free free and available and if you've got ATP So it's it's a storage for calcium right and that's triggered by that charge difference across the membrane when that changes so that depolarization the typical cytotoxic concentration of calcium is about 100 nanomolar right So that just mean if you have that mount in the cell it will just trigger death death correct because epoptosis is a calcium dependent process Yeah, it can be calcium dependent process. Yeah, but the ER Is far more than a hundred nanomolar it can be up to 800 nanomolar right difference That's sorry Micromolar it can be so it can be So the toxic concentration in a cell 100 nanomolar The psychopathic reticular more end-deposite reticular muscle cells can hold between a hundred Micromolar so that's a thousand times more concentrated to 800 micromolar which is 8,000 times more concentrated wow so it really is this pull it's Which if it was just busted open would obviously trigger the cell to die right but is an important pull for calcium And the reason why we need to hold that calcium again is for contraction, but also Calcium waves or what we call calcium bursts or calcium pulses Super important for signaling so for example heart muscle cell so okay skeletal muscle the calcium that's required for its contraction all come from the psychopathic reticular which Comes from a depolarization of the membrane anyway right exactly for cardiac muscle it comes from both The psychopathic reticular and the extracellular fluid which is one of the reasons why there's a number of drugs that alter the way calcium Influx happens for the heart which alters the way it contracts However in in saying that We need calcium pulses from the psychopathic reticular and cardiac muscle cell to help with the depolarization events For the action potentials to occur in the nodal cell sort of so on our true node and the H.O. Ventricular node Because they're more independent because they're more neuronal But they're calcium dependent so neurons Don't need calcium to send action potentials, but they generally do to release the neurotransmitter that right correct But for cardiac muscle cells the action potential at least for the nodal cells the ones that set the pacemaker cells They're calcium dependent to the depolarization that happens because of calcium Okay, all right because of these bursts and waves of calcium So we need the psychopathic reticulum there to to throw these bursts of calcium at does that make sense? Yeah And all we need is the influx of calcium and skeletal muscle for contraction So it doesn't need to be These tombed bursts. Yeah, but it is needed for the heart um Anything else when it comes for that for the smoothie are Yes, I think from my estimation it's really Calcium yep and lipid Processing which are the big roles that the smoothie apply and detoxification in the liver. Yeah, that's exactly right So mitochondria is the last major one, isn't it that we need to cover? I've got the ones to clean up, but okay, good and last do those last to clean up the podcast So mitochondria are super important right? So this is known as the powerhouse of the cell ask every first-year biology student What's the mitochondria and they'll say it's the powerhouse of the cell producers A2 and they say it in that way Exactly like that because I don't care. I'm just sick of this course um So yes, powerhouse of the cell creates energy in the form of ATP which is done at Denizen triphosphate does this via respiration so it needs oxygen Um, and it's required for survival right without a mitochondria we dead Um, but it doesn't just do that so mitochondria and is it true? Okay, the mitochondria. Yes Was a separate organism? Yes, it is so It's likely that it originated as a what's called an alpha proteobacteria, right? So an ancient bacteria Um, and it developed this endosymbiotic relationship with an old archaic cell which would be a pro-cariotic Yes, so you've got Akira is it just a pro-cariotic bacteria? Yeah, you basically got pro-cariotic eukaryotic and archaic right so and and an old archaic and a pro-cariotic cell Came together one engulf the other about two billion years ago in the endosome While it was endosymbiotic it just engulfed it It's just the cell remained intact and as far as we know it only ever happened once in history Wow just once and it was so successful that we came out of that That relationship right well in terms of the mitochondria. Yeah, well We are related to the very first cell the very first archaic cell that Took in a proteobacteria and the reason so two billion years ago, right The reason why this happened we don't know but we know that the relationship was well The proteobacteria will provide an energy and the archaia will provide a protection Right and as time passed and you know and so to confirm that point yes, if it was a separate organism It would have its own genetic material. It does. Yeah, and so the mitochondria so the mitochondria yeah Has its own genetic information. Yeah It's Double membrane, right? Yeah, so when I say double membrane. I don't mean a bilayer It's two bilayers. It's got two bilayers. It's an outer and an inner membrane and an outer membrane and then an intermembrane space. So does that mean the outer is the original Cell membrane of that organism? Good question. Don't know. Don't know if it always had it or it evolved two membranes Over time, but it is important that it does have two membranes because some bacteria do have some two cell membranes light True because then they've got the negative, I think yes because then one they've got the uh what's the that Empercyl and targets the proteoglycans they got the proteoglycan cell wall in between the membranes right and that's what the Empercyl and targets to disintegrate anyway That's not eukaryotic so we've got uh double membrane for the mitochondria and that's important because the intermembrane space between the inner and the outer membrane Is required because that's where we accumulate hydrogen ions that generate the pump For the ATP synthase that allows for the mitochondria to produce ATP. So that would that mean then Bacteria that is similar to the mitochondria would still produce its energy that way Bacteria produces ATP in its membrane walls. Okay, just like the mitochondria does like that. So yes exactly right So basically the mitochondria is a bacteria and produces its its ATP in a similar way to the bacteria However in saying that you said that the mitochondria came with its own DNA it did But now I think it's only got Something like it only codes for like 13 proteins the mitochondrial DNA Um, I think the the DNA circular light bacteria made up of 16 kilobases a 16,000 bases were made up of 3.2 billion right Codes for 13 proteins, which are which are usually within its own self But yes, but out The rest of our genome can still produce proteins for the mitochondria Well, that's the thing the mitochondria over millennia has given us some of its genetic material And so them what those 13 proteins that it encodes they're part of the respiratory chain And of the electron transport chain the weight produces ATP But it doesn't create all of them. We need to create some that contribute as well Right, so it it it's core constituents are from complexes one to four of the respiratory chain But we also need to create other aspects of those complexes. So would that be maybe more like the crebs? Um Components like some of those other well the crew The enzymes associated with it. Yes. Yes, that's exactly right. So we would we would encode All bombs most if not all of the enzymes for the crebs cycle Which is a process that occurs inside the mitochondria It's probably one of the most important processes for all of life because it creates sugars proteins fats So we can create all the things we need for building blocks from the crebs cycle and we can utilize those building blocks for energy in the crebs cycle as well That's how amazing the crebs cycle is Um, but yeah the main purpose of that mitochondria is ultimately to take the You know the sugars fats and proteins mainly sugars and fats that we've ingested in our food take the smallest breakdown product of it So whether it be um a fatty acid a glycerol or glucose Through various biochemical processes that mostly occur outside of the mitochondria But they also occur inside the mitochondria we strip those molecules of protons and electrons and then we hand the mitochondrial membrane those protons and electrons The inner mitochondrial membrane plays hot potato with the electrons which excites these protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane And that allows for that excitation allows for hydrogen or protons to get pumped into that into membrane space There you've got a high concentration of protons there So there's a gradient there's a hydrogen gradient they're going to go down the concentration gradient back into the the middle of the mitochondria And that generates a turbine that produces ATP so the mitochondria are wind turbines or yeah Um, they're they're they're all water mines. So this is the energy of the university. Yes exactly right wind mills and back to the university Good job So if you have a think about this right mitochondrial myopathy So one of the most common mitochondrial diseases reason why I want to bring this up is because it gives us a good indication as to how mitochondrial work You can have mutations in both mitochondrial DNA or nuclear DNA that can cause mitochondrial myopathy Telling you how they both contribute to respiration so making ATP mitochondrial mutations are inherited maternally. Mm-hmm why well Most of I'm not going to say exclusive little bit of probably almost years Of the mitochondria that we have in our body comes from the ovum which is your mum Excuse me your mother. Your mother? Oh, sorry, we're offending each other Um, I posed to this the sperm. Yeah, it was has very little mitochondria But I did come across that you can get genetic At the maladies of the mitochondria. They can be paternal as well. Yeah, I think that's minor right the dogmas never the case right Uh If you have a mitochondrial myopathy so that the this protect the respiratory chain is bugged up in some way the protein complexes aren't working They're not transferring those electrons or pumping the protons properly What do you think the symptoms are of these people with mitochondrial myopathy's weakness? Yeah, weakness and exhaustion Make sense that I don't have any energy because they can't make it so that's really important um So mitochondria there's I'm just having a look. I've got so many notes on the mitochondria It can trigger apoptotic events so the mitochondria can trigger the cell to die so When there's severe DNA damage to a cell or there's severe cell stress or infections or immune responses so the cell itself is infected Yeah, um or there's been a loss of signaling from surrounding cells or hormones or chemicals Uh, what the mitochondria can do is it can take cytochrome c Which is one of the proteins embedded in the mitochondria Uh, and say hey just bugger off jumping out of me and going to the cytoplasm Right now that cytochrome c is important because it helps carry those electrons The reason why we've got all these proteins embedded in the mitochondria that play hot potato with electrons is Electrons are extremely damaging. I think it holds them for a long period of time. Okay, because they get damaged So one will hold it oxidative stress or something. Yeah, so one protein complex will hold it And then you can't hold it in longer your turn your turn your turn Until and each time they do that they hold on to it and they get ah they pump protons right Then they go we need to give it some oh let's give it to oxygen and so the mitochondria hands the final electron to oxygen That's what's called the final electron acceptor But at the same time the protons that are getting pumped down to create the ATP and our present inside the mitochondria We now snap the oxygen with the electron together Hydrogen and we create water and so water is a byproduct of ATP synthesis. Right. Anyway, that's that's a side point So let's talk about it releases the cytochrome c due to stress Um from the intermembrane space. That's where it sits Into the cytosol and this begins a cascading Event which triggers what we call the caspase family? Do you remember that from undergraduate? So the caspase family again proteins multitude of proteins where you activate one which then activates the next and activates the next and activates the next Which ultimately leads to the demise of the cell basically disassembly from the inside. That's apoptosis Right, so that's energy dependent process. It is and it's um a intentional process Necrosis so apoptosis means the leaves falling off the trees in autumn. So it's planned. It's programmed, right? And it happens from the inside out And so it's a control controlled because if you burst a cell yep because it's Probably like what we mentioned at the start You have all these organelles within the cell that are segregated themselves by their own membrane Because they're full of harmful things Yes If you burst this everywhere into the extracellular space It's going to damage all the other cells around it. Yep, and it's going to be a process. That's not process So it's going to be an ongoing Process that's going to cause more damage and inflammation. Yes. So necrosis and apoptosis different Apoptosis programmed necrosis not you know apoptosis was coined by an Australian There's no that John Kerr and I remember when I was working as an undergraduate of New Zealand. No different Yeah, anyone's going to make a joke. So when I was Undergraduate and I was working in a hospital as a theatre technician, right? I remember one of the general surgeons there would tell me every week that oh yeah, I did my training under John Kerr He's the one that coined the term apoptosis. Did he really or it seems to me it's like a Latin term. It's long. It's great Great term. No, no, he coined the term for that process So he discovered the process of apoptosis and called it apoptosis Program cell death right right, but he was working. You know back in the day when surgeons did Like lab research. I mean surgeons don't care what you say. Yeah. Okay. I'm just going to stop then No, I'm not saying that when surgeons did did some real No, no, no, no, it didn't say that at all. Didn't say that at all Anyway, I'm going to leave it there Let's finally talk about the lysosomes and the proxasomes and then we've got listen a male mat Yeah, and then I think we've covered most of the cell. Okay Lysosomes we've already kind of alluded to these are kind of enzymatic Endosomes so they kind of these little bundles filled with Really destructive enzymes. Okay, they've been labelled within the golgi with that kind of Mano six phosphate label on them, which then destined to a part of the cell Which they are just sitting there for particular functions now They work most effectively Within a lower pH. So the enzymes prefer to be I think a city. That's right And so what are they doing? They're these things are cleaning up so they're going to be Clean up products that are brought into the cell that might be damaging now a good example of that if you're a cell that eats things that are damaging like Fagasides. Yeah, then you'd need to have a really good functional lysosome Process oh, so if you're a Fagasidic cell like let's say a monocyte Who's turned into a macrophage once it's sort of Moved its way from the bloodstream into a damaged tissue that's been infected by bacteria and that macrophages and golfed all of these bacteria Now you've filled with bacterial products You don't want them staying inside of you. Yeah, so you're going to have Lysosomes in there that will take care of that So do they do the Lysosomes themselves because the Lysosomes are sitting inside of the cell Do they them? Do they engulf the products of what's inside the cell now correct? So as the It's like a babushka doll of things inside things So as the endosototic process occurs. Yeah, so as the cell engulfs a mass amount of things to bring it into the cell It's now corded endosome and when it first comes in the cell It's called an early endosome and it starts migrating deeper in the cell. Yeah, so as it's migrating deeper Part of the jaw of the endosome is to make it more acidic right because that's going to be where the Lysosome enzymes work more effectively So as it's going deeper into the cell It's going from an early to a late endosome and it's got protein pumps on it to make The inside of the endosome more acidic right so then the Lysosome merges with it and just releases its enzymes Which work more effectively at an acidic pH and then breaks it all down there you go So this can be done with any cell that just brings in products through endosotosis So that's important Cell specifically that do facacytic activities like neutrophils macrophages And interesting point here we've got a top of infection which is tuberculosis. Oh, yeah, which is a bacillus Oh, yeah, so that's a top top bacteria now it has generated a Effective method to stop the Lysosome bind into the endosome right So it becomes engulfed in a macrophage and stays there dormantly And so it can't get killed. So that's why you can have these tuberculosis Active tuberculosis bacteria present within people for decades. Yes, right. So within liver sorry within lung or other locations in the body. It's kind of semi engulfed within macrophages. It's dormant now. I think In some cases it can then become triggered whether it's a drop in immune I'm not quite sure But then the infection can become more active because I remember that with Caterveric specimens, but also taking bones From because I think bones back in the day When you didn't know whether they had died of an infectious disease and if they died of tuberculosis You could still potentially get tuberculosis. Yeah, so that's a function, but also an important Other function that Lysosome does is it does Process to clean within the cell. So this is termed autophagy. Uh-huh. And so War number of the of the cell. Rumba. Rumba. Zumba is the the the dance the thing that you do on Tuesday nights Rumba. Sorry. It's the Rumba So autophagy is become a bit more of a Topical. Yeah, God. That's not even bother because the potential because this is a catabolic process If you can arguably Increase autophagy you increase in the body's ability to clean its own cells Which I don't think necessarily is incorrect. I think there's a lot of science behind it by theory, but but I think Um wellness people have jumped on board with course. So we can't we can't poo poo it But everything's a balance. Yeah, that's right And so to say that oh my body is For whatever reason we're thinking that our body isn't You know over the millennia has an evolved the most effective way to undergo autophagy and that we must improve it really does our Body and evolution disservice and I'm not saying the evolution is perfect by any means Uh, but in saying that We know that there are certain byproducts that the body produces which we need to signal in molecules Right, and so for example oxidative stress. We always say it's a bad thing But it's all about quantity right the dose yeah oxidative stress Can be signaling molecules for the immune system for a whole range of things and my assumption Looking at first principles would be it's the same thing when it comes to autophagy is that we're cleaning up as much as we need to clean up unless there is some sort of um Homostatic dysfunction that's happening that's leading to less auto-phaging Yeah, and I and I think this is where the science comes in and at least from some of the podcasts that I've listened to with I think fairly reputable Scientists that don't name them that work within longevity research I guess yeah, yeah, they do Look at the the the process of autophagy at least one part of it. Yeah, and this is where sometimes calorie intake and so forth could make the process arguably more efficient maybe I still take it with a grain of salt Yeah, I take anybody doing longevity research when they Communicate sometimes difficult ones to translate to humans. Yes, we've got it's such more challenge to Remove the biases. Yeah, I don't want to I don't want to discount longevity research is research and so I'm not saying that for whatever reason It's just it shouldn't be reviewed. It should be looked at it's amazing But look at the papers and if you know to read research papers, then that's where you should be going and I get it You can have people who are great science communicators people far better than us who can talk about this stuff, but I think sometimes Uh The answer and the result is lost when it's simplified to a point where people take what's happened in a mouse model And then says well, this mouse lived 50% longer because it did this it's like, yeah, well the mouse only lived for a couple weeks anyway So you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway, so So proxasomes and then we can finish there the other thing I just mentioned with Disease that come sometimes fits with lysis arms. Yeah, a couple of diseases. There's a neurological condition called Taysac's disease. Oh, yes, and that is that is due to a Change in the inability of the I guess it'd be partly the autophagy effect. I thought it was due to a sedum elephant and then the Sedum elephant am I wrong? I thought there was a I thought there was a raw This is a genetic abnormality okay, which is I think an enzyme within that which leads to The accumulation of lipids within the neurons that causes cell death Um, I think you're thinking of a syndrome Yeah, what am I what am I thinking of racing drone I'm thinking of race syndrome, not Tay Ray So and the other one is osteo osteoarthritis yeah, which Seems to also hurt effect in lysis arms. Yeah, um lysis arms and that seems to have an effect on Condra blast or Condra sites, which then degrade the the um cartilage cartilage of the the bone the joints. Yeah, now the almost there the the peroxio zones Sorry, the peroxone the peroxomes peroxasomes peroxasomes. Yeah, we go. So they Do kind of two things one again, these are endosomes that are filled with Enzymes, but these are more oxidative enzymes. Yes, so they do a different type of catabolism for the main catabolism. Yeah, it's okay. I'll pronounce all the words at you It's been two hours, but they basically clean up oxidative stress or they create it Well, they create it by trying to clean up right so they they turn up from one one oxidative stress to another So generally is No, you tell me so one one job that they do yep is they can change really long fatty acids into shorter fatty acids Which then send it to the mitochondria for beta oxidation. Yep, so that's one But in in part of their job, they also produce hydrogen peroxide. Yep, which is oxidative Now there's some cells that have utilized this For its own function. So this would be also some immune cells. Yeah, which would utilize this release to break down Maybe damaged cells or mitochondria or not the mitochondria microorganisms or even signal to other immune cells to come To the area because we need some assistance. Yes, but then we need to break down that Box hydrogen peroxide. Yeah as well, but we tend to break that down into border and oxygen Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, different substances to do that So that's peroxasomes have we covered it all? The only other additional one is the cytoskeleton. Yeah. Okay. All right. So let's talk about the scaffolding the proteins that hold the cell together. What do you think? Yes, let's go. All right So there's a couple different ones first of which three first we need to talk about the cell fact that it's a cell with three classes Okay, before going to that remember that the cell membrane is real Squiggly and wobbly like oil, right? I think it's better to say it's like a see or an ocean. Okay, so it's constantly in flux Yeah, that's right. It's important to say that but it still needs integrity So we still needs a cytoskeleton within the cells to sort of like prop it up scaffolding right so I've got that there are like three three right these yours microfilaments micro tubules and intermediate filaments Yep. Okay, so microfilaments are like actin Now actin is this thin flexible protein that's used It's well, it just holds the cell shape and support but it's also modifiable Well, it's modifiable in the sense that you can have that's dynamic. Okay. Just keep interrupting me In muscle actin is used for contraction. Yeah, right. So not only does it help hold the cytoskeleton architecture together, but it can actually with mice and another protein Form these cross bridges these cross links and contract. Yeah, right. So in terms of musculature These cells have utilized their cytoskeleton in this case the microfilaments. Yeah, to do its primary job. That's right It's also used in part when cells divide. Oh, yes, never spoke about But cells sometimes need to make copies of themselves so they need to read the DNA double it up Make daughter copies of itself and then split apart And so what's one of those things called? That what called that pull them apart And that's in mytosis, right? It's in mytosis. I think part of that is What is that called? Are they micro tubules? No, but there's a term for them Um, are the spindles. Yeah, the spindles. Yeah, no, that's um tubulin. Oh, okay. That's that's tubulin Third type. Well, that's yeah, one of those three types But actin is involved as well. So actin and tubulin help in the process of mytosis and pulling those two cells apart Um, which I think is cytokinesis, right? Yeah, that's right. So that's actin. So they're the microfilaments Well, that's one. Do you have another microfilament you want to talk about? No, I think I think that's pretty much what I had the main one would they have Cells that actually need to migrate that wouldn't use also actin for its method of movement Because it importantly because an important point here is This crawling right this comes down to Mechanobiology. Yes, and I did it. I mean, I supervised a PhD student in this space. Yeah, so it's definitely not my area But he was an engineer and student and I did the biology part of his PhD And so what he wanted to look at so the primary supervisor is a professor in microfluidics. Oh, yeah And so what we looked at in his work was changing the The physical nature of cells can change its phenotype in a way So if you grew cells on a membrane, you know how we usually when we do Cellular in vitro work. You just grow it on a static Plash or dish, right? In this case We grew it on a Dispensable, not that's pensable. Distanceable. Distanceable. There we go Membrane which you can change so you we could flex it or we could put it under strain And so by doing so the The cytoskeleton of the cell would change so depending on the pulses that you use the type of stress would change The way that the cytoskeleton orientates the cell and so even to the point where You can go to cell differentiation so if you were to put a mesenchymal stem cell so a connected tissue like cell That's very immature Hasn't decided what it wants to become And you put it under different types of physical stress. Yep. It would differentiate differently So it might come become if it's under sheer stress might become more like a And a cellular cell, right? Which is what you'd find in blood vessels. Yep But if you put it under a different type of load it might become more like a tendon Or a more like a cartilage or even more like a muscle cell. Right. So you're saying that the cell type is In a large part determined by the cytoskeletal architecture. Yeah. That's right And even and so when you stain for these so you might put the cell under a microscope put in antibodies to stain for Chibbulin and then you can see that the way that these cytoskeletons line up Some will line up in the opposing direction to the strain that you put on it and some will go perpendicular or In the same plane as it All depending on the cyclic how quick you do it. Yeah The speed and all that kind of stuff. Oh, that's interesting. I didn't think that would nest I would think that it's dynamic. I mean if you think we're all growing right so for example my three-year-old son and your three-year-old daughter They've both got psychic nerves. So they've got neurons, but they're very small people So it's you know half a foot long But they're going to grow up and it needs to stretch Right that same neuron needs to grow because neurons and this is how I suppose my tautic exactly this is how neurons In the embryo They have to kind of grow into the limbs, but it's actually the limbs that grow and pull the neuron with it So the cytoskeletal architecture would be changing and we'll be stretching which is To the point of what you were saying All right, so we've got Microfilaments such as acted microfilaments Cell shape and support cell movement so this could be muscle contraction But also cell crawling so the movement of cells like an event structures they call it like an amoeba Like movement. Yeah, which kind of like crawls itself along the ground. Yeah, it's it's interesting when you see this Yeah, and also sort of kinesis so that process of the cell membrane And the once you've doubled up the cell and you're splitting it apart The second I've got is microtubules and so microtubules tubule is a hollow tube so we we um I've stained for these in neuronal work. So microtubules must be important for neurons They run everything they run in the neuron. Yeah, but they transport things up and down the neuron So right if you want like organelles could be organelles Yeah, I guess it's they could be organelles or certain products molecules that are important So I'm guessing even neurotransmitters potentially. So there'd be carrier proteins that would walk their way up the microtubules Yeah, I guess so yeah, we're interested. So beta tubule is a common stain that we use in axons. Yeah Wow, so okay, so movement intercellular transport but beta microtubules would also be Part of the flagella in sperm. Oh, yeah, and sillia and sillia in the apical end of particularly like endothelial cells. Yeah, right. Okay. Um, but also part of the chromatids Separation which you said in mitosis. Yes. Yes. So the the mitotic spindle. Yeah And then the last one I've got is intermediate filaments and so intermediate filaments I called that because they're sort of intermediate in size like if you take the microfilaments and then the tubule and all the microtubules They sort of size-wise they sit in the middle. And again in my research. Yeah, these are the neurites So when we because I mostly do my research in peripheral nerves. Yeah, if you cut an axon It will try to regenerate and it kind of almost puts these filler like things out To try and reestablish its connection. Right. And so it's these intermediate filaments that try to reestablish Do you know what type of intermediate filaments are like lamonds? Oh, we call them neurofilaments So that's a common stain that we use, but it's just the the the axon sprouts Trine and I think all neurons do this. They spray out trying to look for Connections. Yeah, because that's all they want right of course for communication. Yeah, and a lot of them don't meet effective Networks so they just kind of prune off and die whereas your hope one of them will yeah, that will regenerate the nerve So there's heaps of different types. So they're with the neural intermediate filaments. Yeah, you can have carotens They're intermediate filaments. Lamonds are intermediate filaments as well Vimentum Depending on the cell type. Yeah, depending on the cell type and then you have the other things that are part of the cytoskeleton Which I'd like their junctions between the cells. So they will allow the cells to stick to each other. Yeah, they're like tight junctions Yeah, but also gap junctions which is like sesame zones which allows The communication between the cells. Yeah, that's well and to keep them together if they're excitable Like if it's a caveat muscle cell and you need to contract to if you've got two Heart muscle cells together and you want them both to contract they're gonna pull away from each other So if they're connected then they both contract together and that's how in a heart one cell or all the cells work as I was one cell Sensation love that word sensation and I think we've gone through it all man Run we didn't go through the ions and the cousins. Yeah, but I think that's something we've done before or we will do Do we need so is that every organ now you can think of well not every organ I can think of but it's most organelles within the body Um or within the cell I should say and I think it covers it quite well Now we usually do listen a male, but what we're gonna do is we're gonna do listen a male as its own podcast Because we've received we've been inundated with emails Of people not just thanking us for the spectacular job that we've done But asking us questions and we want to do we'd well we don't want to do a disservice We want to be able to answer those questions well So we've got questions that have been asked and we want to do our research and be able to answer them properly So maybe once a month we'll have a specific podcast that will Um thank the listeners that have sent in emails to You know be nice to us But also answer the questions answer questions, which some of them will require us to do some research because they are as far tricky said jobs, right? So if you as long as they're not assignment questions. Yeah, we can tell We write assignments. So Uh if you want to send us an email you can do so uh at gus it's gubisciences at gmail.com Uh or uh you can send us an email [email protected] or use the website or just go to the website which is doctormark.com.au Uh Ask us a question bank us If you do love this podcast Please give us a five-star review on the podcast whether it's by iTunes or Spotify and if you're watching this via YouTube Please hit the subscribe button if you already have Not done that and click the thumbs up button leave a comment ask us a question We love doing this as you know we do this for free. We do this Because we love educating people We do it in my shed we do and we don't always blew away. Yeah like he didn't But the thing is we need Support Because without you watching We can't keep doing it. We need a side of skeleton. We do we do Um If you want to be our side of skeletons send us an email Anyway, Maddie. Thank you so much. Dear listener. Thank you so much and we'll see you soon