6: How Does Your Garden Grow?


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    Our plants grew a lot over these past few weeks. With the help of mitosis, our brussel sprouts now have a stem and leaves, as opposed to the once seedlings. Mitosis is the process of dividing cells in order to create an identical match to it. The cell duplicates the DNA in order to produce more chromosomes. The DNA is needed in order to make the final two split cells identical to each other. The chromosomes, in which the replicated DNA will reside, 'winds up' together so that the two separate chromatids can finally meet together at their center point or the centromere. The cells exponential growth allows the plant to grow bigger and bigger each day!
    ATP is the energy carrier of the cell. It is used in mitosis, and is produced during photosynthesis and cellular respiration. Photosynthesis uses light energy in order to create chemical energy that can, in the future, help the plant get energy. The process starts with chloroplasts absorbing the sunlight through the molecules, chlorophyll. This causes a light reaction to happen and an enzyme to break apart the water molecule and creating hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen leaves the plant and gets put out into the air which allows us to breath! The hydrogen molecules are carried to the stroma, the unused energy is also stored here too. Carbon dioxide enters the plant, as well. The hydrogen and electrons turn NADP into NADPH which helps start the Calvin Cycle. The cycle takes the products of the first steps of photosynthesis, or dependent reactions, and combines them with carbon dioxide to make sugars. The cycle ensures that these final products help the plant remain healthy and have enough energy in order to help itself grow and continue the cycle onwards.

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    In order for plants to create proteins, they need RNA. Unlike DNA, RNA is a single stranded molecule.  They also use other organelles too, such as ribosomes and mRNA. The cells forms a compatible messenger RNA using the information from the original DNA. This is managed by the RNA polymerase, an enzyme. Then a ribosome, another enzyme, ATP, and tRNA (transfer RNA) start to 'decode' the condons, by looking at the triplets and deciding which amino acid will truly match with that particular coding of letters. The ribosome also puts the amino acid together, in order to form a chain. This chain stays connected until it gets to the last condon, where it then decides to release itself into the cell's cytoplasm. That chain is an enzyme ready to catalyze whatever it's intended to.
A plant's cytoplasm is swimming with all sorts of these enzymes, tRNA, mRNA, RNA polymerase, and ribosomes just waiting to have the opportunity to fulfill their jobs. These molecules help the cell stay alive, if these functions are working so is the cell! Our plants need these enzymes to be able to have the ability to grow. They help them to create more energy in order to aid other processes, such as photosynthesis and cellular respiration.


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