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Blog Post #6 - Jesse Zalk


1) Our Little Plant has been growing quite a bit these last few months. It used to be barely noticeable and smaller then a leaf, but not it's quite a decently sized plant that may not be growing incredibly fast, is definitely growing. It's been going through photosynthesis, which will add biomass and widen the amount of resources available to the plant. Photosynthesis is when plants take in sunlight and convert it to CO2, O2, and Sugars. Even though it's been cold and the sun isn't out as much, our plants still been taking all of the light energy there is and using it for it's growth. However, Photosynthesis isn't the only process our plant is going through. It's also going through Mitosis. Mitosis is the replication of cells that allows an organism to stay strong and healthy. It's also vital for letting organisms take in new cells as well. Without this function, new cells wouldn't be created and most cells would die much, much faster. Cellular Respiration is another occurrence that keeps our plant growing and healthy. During Cellular Respiration, the plant can create energy such as NADP+ and ATP, these are high energy sugars that keep a plant functioning. ATP is responsible for transporting the necessary energy for cellular metabolic activities while NADP+ is relevant for moving energized elections around the plant during photosynthesis.

2) Our plants making enzymes starts from a single strand of DNA, and after tons of transcription and translation, finishes as a series of Proteins. This happens because most enzymes are proteins as well, so when a cell is making proteins it's making enzymes as well. At the start of this process, helicase unzips the Double Stranded DNA structure and RNA Polymerase follows and adds RNA Nucleotides onto single stranded DNA sequences. The RNA stores the same information as the DNA, but RNA  is much more versatile then DNA. Because of this, the RNA goes to Ribosome to create some protein. The Ribosome will read the RNA in three sequence patterns called codons, and this will begin when the "Start" codon is found (AUG). Each codon represents Amino Acids, which transfers to proteins. The specific proteins that our plant will want to create for photosynthesis are known as Phosphoglycerate kinase (PKG) and ribulose 1, 5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco). Because of it's earlier processes, the plants can tell if they need RKG and Rubisco for Photosynthesis, and will then create the needed enzymes.

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