Manatad, Bryan Axel R.

Bio 152-A
Assignment 2: Cell Biology

Endoplasmic Reticulum

The endoplasmic reticulum is an organelle present in the cytoplasm of all

eukaryotic cells. It resembles a series of flattened sacs divided into many folds. ERs are
essential mainly because they play important roles in the synthesis, modification, folding
and transport of proteins. However, they can also play other roles that are important for
life processes.
Two types of ER is easily distinguishable from its structure, although they also
play different functions. The rough endoplasmic reticulum got its name because of the
ribosomes attached to its cytoplasmic surface, which gives it a rough appearance. Rough
ERs, more specifically the ribosomes attached to them, are responsible for protein
synthesis. The rough ER is located near the nucleus, which gives it control over protein
processing. This proximity enables the rough ER to send signals immediately to the
nucleus whenever a problem occurs in protein synthesis (Rogers, 2020). The proteins
produced by the ribosomes can either be used up inside the cell or exported for outside.
Nonetheless, these proteins are essential for the structure, function, and regulation of the
body’s tissues and organs.
The smooth endoplasmic reticulum, on the contrary, got its name due to the
absence of ribosomes in the cytoplasmic surface. Additionally, its function is to
synthesize lipids such as cholesterol and phospolipids, which are essential in cell
membrane synthesis. They can also play several specific roles (e.g. production of steroid
hormones) depending on the cell type.

Cell Formation
Modern scientific community accepted the cell theory proposed by Matthias
Jacob Schleiden, Theodore Schwann and Rudolf Virchow. It has been universally
accepted that living organism are made up of cells, the basic structural unit of all
organism, and that these cells come from pre-exising cells, as discovered by Italian
biologist Francisco Redi, consequently disproving the theory of spontaneous generation.
The very first cell, or at least as the fossil record shows, emerged at least 3.8 billion years
ago not so long after the earth formed. Up until today, the origin of this first cell still
remains a matter of debate as the condition of the earth in in that period is impossible to
replicate in the lab, hence the events that led to the formation is also impossible to
reproduce. This impossibility, however, did not stop the scientific community. Several
scientists have attempted experiments that recreate some of the steps of the process of
cell formation. The most widely accepted theory on life origin is abiogenesis, with many
hypothesis explaining how it could have occurred.

Primordial Soup Hypothesis

Although the concept of abiogenesis has been circulating in the scientific
community for centuries, it was only in 1920 when it was first suggested that simple
organic molecules can polymerize into macromolecules under natural conditions thought
to exist in the primitive earth’s atmosphere. Alexander Oparin (1924) and John Haldane
(1925), although differing in many details, suggested that the molecules constituting the
earliest cells were produced from simpler compounds as the conditions of the primeval
earth favoured the needed chemical reactions. Oparin suggested that at the time life arose,
the Earth’s atmosphere is thought to have contained primarily of carbon dioxide and
nitrogen as well as lower concentrations of H2, H2S, and CO instead of large
concentration of O2 as it is now and million years ago. The atmosphere is a favorable condition for
the formation of monomers, providing there is a source of energy, as it provides reducing conditions.
These monomers then accumulate in “soup” , hence the name of the hypothesis, and
developed into more complex polymers through further chemical reactions (Oparin,
1953).

Miller-Urey Experiment
The first experimental evidence for spontaneous formation of organic molecules
proposed by Oparin and Haldane came from Stanley Miller and Harold Urey in 1952.
The Miller-Urey experiment showed
that organic molecules such as amino
acids are produced when a mixture of
dihydrogen, methane, and ammonia
when hit with sufficient energy, in this
case discharge of electric sparks. This
experiment supposedly reproduced the
primitive earth’s atmosphere as
described by Oparin-Haldane
hypothesis. Although in November
2020, it was reported that the
Figure 1. Miller-Urey Experiment (By Cjhiggin at
English Wikibooks, CC BY-SA 3.0, conditions used in the Miller-Urey
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid= experiment was different from the
earth’s atmosphere when the first biological molecules were produced (Zurich, 2020).
RNA World
While abiogenesis was able to show how simple organic molecules can
spontaneously form monomers, it was not directly established what the first
marcomolecule is. The most
important characteristic that
scientist believe this first
macromolecule possessed is the
ability to self-replicate. There are
only two major informational
macromolecules today, the
proteins and the nucleic acids, but
only the latter can self-replicate.
Although the Miller-Urey
Figure 2. Hypothetical first cell consisted of little
more than RNA inside a lipid membrane experiment did not produce
(Wilson,2014). nucleotides, their formation under
the plausible conditions was reported by researchers (Powner et. Al., 2009). In 1980, Sid
Altman and Tom Cech discovered that RNA is capable of numerous chemical reaction,
including the ability to catalyze its own replication. From then, they were believed to
carry genetic information, preceding the DNA. This discovery supported the concept of
RNA world (coined by Walter Gilbert in 1986) by Alexander Rich in 1962, in which he
proposed that there is a certain period in the evolutionary history of life on earth where
RNA proliferated before the existence of DNA and proteins (Neveu et. al., 2013). The
first cell is believed to come from a self-replicating RNA enclosed in phospholipid
membrane, becoming a unit that is capable of further evolution, resulting to organelles
present in prokaryotes. In the case of eukaryotes, several membrane bound organelles
such as the mitochondia, chloroplasts and plastids evolved through the process of
endosymbiosis. It is speculated that the organelles of the first eukaryotic cell (originally a
prokaryote) are actually bacteria that lives within the cell in a symbiotic relationship.
 Figure 3. Endosymbiosis between bacteria to form eukaryotic cell
Genetic evidences reveal that mitochondrial DNA resembles the DNA of a group
of bacteria that is responsible for typhus (Typhus bacterium), while chloroplasts DNA
resembles that of cyanobacterial DNA.

Panspermia
Panspermia is a hypothesis which suggests that life on earth came from outer
space. It does not attempt to to explain how life originated, instead tries to answer where
they came from. In this hypothesis, it is believed that life began about 17 million years
after the Big Bang during a certain period of habitable epoch and distributed to into
space and other bodies by meteoroid, asteroids, comets, and planetoids (Loeb, 2014;
Dreifus, 2014; Wickramasinghe, 2011; Rampelotto, 2010). Another speculation of
panspermia is that life on earth first originated on Mars. Carl Zimmer (2013) suggested
that early Mars atmosphere contained considerable amount of boron, molybdenum and
oxygen, making it a favorable environment for the initial production of RNA. This
hypothesis, of course, is largely based on the theory of RNA world.
References

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