Joseph's Story
Angelique Kennedy
7/19/13
Unit 2 Case Study- The Cellular level of organization A. List Joseph’s risk factors and create a brief summary of the information you have so far. Identify how his risk factors would affect cellular function.
Joseph’s risk factors include family history of vascular disease, his diet, smoking cigarettes. His risk factors would affect cellular function greatly because of the strain it puts on the heart.
B. Assuming Joseph’s heart has stopped, what cellular processes and membrane functions are going to be affected by the loss of oxygen, blood glucose, and waste removal?
Without the heart pumping, oxygen and blood glucose won’t reach the vital organs of the body that need them for sustenance. Eventually without the ability to produce ATP the body’s cells will die.
C. Which intracellular organelles have membranes as part of their structure? How would the breakdown of the membranes of these structures affect the function of Joseph’s heart cells?
All intracellular organelles have membranes as part of their structure. The breakdown of the membranes of these structures affect the function of the heart because the special calcium ATPases’s had stopped moving calcium from the cytosol, into the edoplasmic reticulum of his cardiac muscle cells. As the intracellular calcium levels rose, they caused proteases to spill into the interior of the cell, attacking the cytoskeleton.
D. Two important pieces of information- the instructions Joseph’s body needs to repair itself and his predisposition for vascular disease- are both contained within the cell on which structures?
His predisposition for vascular disease is held in the Mitochondrial DNA. The information that is needed to repair itself is held in the DNA also but is mainly held in the Messenger RNA, which directs the synthesis of specific proteins that can help repair the body.
E. Joseph’s heart attack has caused the function of his cells to change. What types
7/19/13
Unit 2 Case Study- The Cellular level of organization A. List Joseph’s risk factors and create a brief summary of the information you have so far. Identify how his risk factors would affect cellular function.
Joseph’s risk factors include family history of vascular disease, his diet, smoking cigarettes. His risk factors would affect cellular function greatly because of the strain it puts on the heart.
B. Assuming Joseph’s heart has stopped, what cellular processes and membrane functions are going to be affected by the loss of oxygen, blood glucose, and waste removal?
Without the heart pumping, oxygen and blood glucose won’t reach the vital organs of the body that need them for sustenance. Eventually without the ability to produce ATP the body’s cells will die.
C. Which intracellular organelles have membranes as part of their structure? How would the breakdown of the membranes of these structures affect the function of Joseph’s heart cells?
All intracellular organelles have membranes as part of their structure. The breakdown of the membranes of these structures affect the function of the heart because the special calcium ATPases’s had stopped moving calcium from the cytosol, into the edoplasmic reticulum of his cardiac muscle cells. As the intracellular calcium levels rose, they caused proteases to spill into the interior of the cell, attacking the cytoskeleton.
D. Two important pieces of information- the instructions Joseph’s body needs to repair itself and his predisposition for vascular disease- are both contained within the cell on which structures?
His predisposition for vascular disease is held in the Mitochondrial DNA. The information that is needed to repair itself is held in the DNA also but is mainly held in the Messenger RNA, which directs the synthesis of specific proteins that can help repair the body.
E. Joseph’s heart attack has caused the function of his cells to change. What types